I swear it's you
by planet p
Summary: AU; a story about Cox's family in 2009; pretty strange.
1. Chapter 1

**I swear it's you **by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** AU; OC-centric; I couldn't think of a good title. JR is Cox; Christopher, Patience and Bruno are his family; Ursula is his sister. Cox gets a mention, but he's not featured in the story in this chapter. Kind of semi-colon happy at the moment.

* * *

_2009_

Recently, he'd gone off graffiti. He didn't know why, it'd just happened. He wagged going 'round to Darol's after school and stayed at home, up in his room, or in the new entertainment room his dad had finally got, watching his _True Crimes_ DVDs in theatre-quality surround sound.

So, maybe it was because he was older now, and, well, maybe everybody's interests shifted when they got older. He liked watching the show's host, Shannen Cleary; he pretty much liked everything about her; her Barbie doll looks: blonde hair and blue eyes; even her 'obnoxious' outfits. She was his dream girl.

Darol and he were the same age, in the same grade at school, and they'd been friends like forever, or as far back as he could concede to remembering. It'd been Darol who'd got him into graffiti, and, for a while, he'd really loved it. Plus, he'd been good! Darol and he had raised money for a local foundation's campaign against family violence with the police department one year by souping up one of their squad car's paint job with a little graffiti art; but he'd outgrown all of that now.

It looked like maybe he'd outgrown Darol, too.

Darol came around on the weekend, on a Saturday, and caught him when his parents weren't home. His parents wanted him to study, but he was tired of study, so he trudged downstairs to get the door, not bothering to correct his slouch.

Well, so, he knew it was Darol, he'd seen her from his window, upstairs, and he didn't feel like fighting her; if he didn't get the door, she'd tell her mom, Carol, who'd tell his mom, that he must have been out, and he'd get in trouble. And, of course, she'd say it was because she was _worried_ for him.

She was always worried for him; it pissed him off. In school, she'd follow him around, telling him how she was worried, and now she was at his house, ready, he was sure, with another boring speech on how _worried_ she was. Great!

He paused to open the door and slouched back upstairs, hearing, as he neared the top of the staircase, the sound of the door clicking shut again, and, then, as he was in the hallway, Darol's sneakers on the stairs.

He flopped down on his bed in his bedroom, and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable rant, but he only felt Darol's weight settle on the side of the bed, and her hand touch his leg.

He snapped open his eyes in alarm and saw that his once best friend wasn't even looking at him, and that she felt completely at ease with her hand being on his leg, though he felt completely uneasy with it.

Struggling into a sitting position, he lifted up her hand by a finger, and dropped it back onto the mattress, which was when he noticed that Darol had pushed the hood on her hoodie back to reveal gleaming dyed blonde hair, and felt immediately sick.

She was trying to win him back that way, was she? By conforming to what she saw him as being attracted to. Soon, she'd have the contact lenses too! Looking at her now, with close, narrowed eyes, he could see that she'd lost weight, too. What was she fucking playing at? If she'd known him better, if she'd really known him, she'd have known he didn't go for changing your body just to please someone else. Your body was your body, it was your shrine to the wonder of life, and you didn't fuck it around for anyone – you took care of it, always, and loved it unconditionally; there was no greater love, nor of man or earth or god, that outstripped the love of your worldly home! Her efforts disgusted him!

He thrust out a hand, leaping onto his knees and drawing forward, closer to her, and grabbed a hold of her chin, pulling her face around to his. "What did you do?" he growled.

For the first time, her eyes showed fear, but he just didn't care. If she'd ever taken issue to him in the past, she might've broken off their friendship then. His older brother was a murderer and child molester to most everyone he knew – his dream girl, included – and Darol had know this as long as he himself, had. He _hoped_ she was afraid of him!

"My mom says she likes it this way," Darol spoke in a flowing female voice she'd recently taken up, and he remembered from a school play one year, along with the painfulness of getting the gist of it.

He took a fistful of her hair and bent her head back, just a little. Now, her fear was liquid and flowed from her eyes into his, and down into the inside of him, burrowing deep into his heart. "Your body was given to you to accomplish a function, just the way it was: perfect. You despoil your sacred life-giving alter, Darol!" He spat the words out, anger in every syllable, and Darol's brown eyes fluttered in flinches.

Bruno imagined the feel of those eyelashes against her cheeks, against his cheeks, and released her hair, allowing her to straighten her head and relax her neck, and propelled himself backward, against the headboard of his bed; he didn't even care when he felt a jab of pain and annoyance reverberate down his spine and through his back.

"You come to me looking like a harlot!" he ranted, then his eyes flashed in disgust, remembering the hand she'd laid on his leg. "Is that what you want, Darol! An Excalibur to slay your unclean beast!" His face worked in repulsion as he hissed the words, then, as his voice rose in volume, becoming clearer, even as it rang, bouncing from wall to wall. "Sexuality is not unclean, it is a gift that signifies a transition in life, a changing of perspectives and of roles; if you would treat it as though it were filthy, as though it were an unsightly creature, then you betray yourself, and you betray this entire species – you betray the rightness and goodness of life!"

Darol's eyes welled with tears that swirled and spilled, tracing the curve of her nose as they raced down her face. "I just want you back," she sobbed, not meeting his eyes, but, instead, gazing at the bedroom floor. "I just want you."

He leapt away from the front of his bed, but fell back, dropping his arms to his side. "Come here," he growled stiffly, his voice gruff, and he felt, without having to look, that Darol had turned, in spite of her fear, and confusion, and then, as she came crawling across the bed towards him, and settled, uncertainly, in front of him, her tears making a waterfall that flowed onto his covers, and the legs of his pants, soaking through the material onto his skin.

He put out his arms then, and held her awkwardly. It was just that she was Darol; his best friend, he didn't think he'd have been as angry at any other girl, after all, he never was angry at his mother. He shifted up to her, and held her more securely.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he told her gently, in almost a whisper, and pressed his face to the side of her head, inhaling the smell of her new hair; he didn't like the smell. With his hands, he turned Darol to face him, and pressed his closed lips to her cheekbone, below her eye, and tasted the salt of her tears. "I'm sorry."

"I-I don't think it's unclean," Darol stammered, her voice dipping and rising again. "I… just want us to hang out again, I don't care what we do, but I want to be with you; I want to be near you. You're my best friend, Bruno."

Bruno kissed her other cheekbone. "I'm sorry; I know."

She sniffed loudly then, and brushed a hand past his face on its ways up to wipe her runny nose on the back of her sleeve, sniffing again as she wiped her nose.

"Here, let's find you a tissue," Bruno whispered into her ear, before scooting off the bed quickly, away from the warmth of her body, and holding out his hand to her.

She pushed her snotty sleeve back quickly and grasped his hand, climbing off the bed to stand beside him; he'd gotten so tall lately, and she'd stayed small; there were skyscrapers between them.

He squeezed her hand and pivoted toward the door, and, when he walked out of the bedroom, she followed him, leaving the door open behind them.

* * *

Sunday, he attended church with his mother, then decided he'd drop by the party he'd heard about that was being held later in the evening by a boy in his grade. Lenoi, the new kid. He'd discovered a cheap paper invite tacked to his locker door with sticky tack Monday at school, and he'd ignored it up 'til now, but now he thought that, yeah, maybe he'd go anyway, just so everyone didn't think he was a freak like his older brother, JR. Not that he thought that JR was a freak, but he knew that everyone at school did. If he ever felt like hooking up, or socialising with the other kids in his grade, he wasn't so keen on them thinking he might flip and turn into a child molester any day, or that, with the stress of exams, he'd morph into a killer and take them all out, one by one, or just the smart ones.

The party would be a good idea, if he could get his mom or dad to agree, or maybe he wouldn't tell them; they did have that dinner date together, so maybe, if he just stayed out for a bit, they'd never notice he was gone. He'd be bland, and boring, and maybe the other kids wouldn't even mention him at all, but at least he'd have gone, at least they wouldn't pin him with antisocial crimes.

It was dark when he set off for the party on foot, and, after half an hour, he found the house pretty easy; it was the brightest, loudest house on the block; hard to miss. He searched out the group of kids already there with his eyes, then walked up to Lenoi and, in a formal tone, welcomed him to their town, and shook his hand.

Lenoi laughed once he'd turned his back, but it was more of an okay-that-kinda-freaked-me-out laugh than a what-a-loser laugh, so he wasn't hurt. He headed for where the drinks were; after walking the whole way, he figured hydration couldn't hurt.

Lenoi's mom was Japanese, and his dad French Canadian, which pretty much summed up his looks, though he spoke with a Canadian lilt to his voice, and he could transition to Canada's special brand of French with a snap of his fingers. He was smart at school, and easily made new friends with the more tolerant kids, or the kids just looking for a good time, free of charge, of course.

Bruno was still to formulate an opinion of him, but from what he'd experienced so far, the kid didn't seem like a bad type; he'd keep the party under control and mostly clean. He took a swig of punch – non-alcoholic – and glanced around him at the faces of the partygoers, recognising some, bombing out on others.

The house was alive with dance music, and he moved his feet around a bit, testing his ability to hold a decent dance move, and quickly gave up. So, he wasn't the dancing type; he didn't feel much like making a dunce of himself, either. It was better to give up than to stuff up with most of the kids in his grade. He went for some more punch, and was asked to dance by a girl he didn't know; maybe from another school.

He politely declined her, informing her that his dance card was an OHS accident report waiting to happen, and that he didn't want to see anything harmful happen to her, and wished her an enjoyable evening.

That one got a few rowdy laughs.

He ignored them; he could tell they weren't the sort of laughs you rose to the provocation of.

He talked with the kid he was partner with in the science lab for the week, Dan, about school, before Dan moved on, taking up Marly Howard's offer to dance.

He met Samantha outside the bathroom, and she told him she thought it'd be best not to go in, though she was kinda bursting, so he knocked on the door loudly and announced that Samantha needed to use the facilities and that she'd be coming in in a moment, then nodded to Samantha, and pulled the door open, and watched Samantha hesitantly step inside, then shut the door after herself.

When she came out, Samantha told him that Yazmin was in there with Zeke, looking like they were just hiding out from the racket, though she suspected otherwise, and thanked him, before moving away, back into the crowd.

He directed himself toward the back of the house and found some kids playing cards in the laundry room on a foldable card table and foldable chairs, the sort purchased from bargain stores and department stores, and maybe the old army disposal, or camping, hunting and fishing place. He was about to pass them by when he saw that Darol was with them, not having recognised her immediately because of her new hair colour, and froze. He'd been at the party for maybe an hour, and he hadn't seen Darol in all the time he'd been walking around, so it was strange to see her here, now, tucked away in Lenoi Hung Renoir's overbright laundry.

Then his eyes came to rest on the bottle of bourbon, and he felt himself press forward, his hand now on the cool, solid wood of the door, and he heard voices shouting that he wasn't allowed, but he didn't care because how dare they tell him he wasn't allowed when they weren't allowed the alcohol they were sharing, and Darol had obviously consumed in a fair quantity, and, now, and he pushed further into the room, he saw that she'd taken off her skirt, and, though he wasn't an expert at card games, he figured that meant she was on the losing end of the stick.

He heard more loud noises – voices – and felt something hard connect with the back of his head, and he stumbled, realising that it _hurt_, and fell, unable to catch himself, then Lenoi was on his feet, shouting too – Bruno recognised his voice, his boots – then, he was being helped to his feet, and it was Lenoi's face he saw, but Lenoi wasn't apologising, he was telling him, instead, that he'd live, that it would be fine, and Bruno couldn't look at him because he didn't _care_, his eyes moving instead to Darol.

He heard Lenoi's attempted explanation, then, unsteadily, he had removed his wallet, and he tossed all the money he had in it down on the foldable card table and charged around the table, pulling free of restricting hands, and pulled off his jacket and put it around Darol's shoulders, and hauled her up to her feet, only just maintaining his balance.

One boy got in his way, then another, to block his exit, but he only stared them down and told them to back off, and to his surprise – maybe he'd heard Lenoi's voice – they did, and he was free of the artificial brightness of Marie Masako Renoir's laundry, Darol in his arms.

He left the party knowing that he wouldn't say anything, despite the powerful urge to bring pain down on Lenoi and his friends; Lenoi might have been new to town, but his father was an executive, and Bruno's father put people in the ground for a living, his older brother was a sex fiend and a murderer, and his mother was Queen Loopy.

He had Darol, she was safe now; that was all that mattered.

* * *

He was full of shit, of that Bruno was certain, when he arrived back at his house, and collapsed on the steps, Darol falling onto him like a dead weight. He fought the tiredness that overcame him then, and the panic, and reached for Darol's neck, checking for a pulse.

It was there; subdued.

He needed to get her inside, he needed to get them both inside. He couldn't relax until they were inside.

Eight minutes later, he hauled them both to their feet, unlocked the door, and kicked it shut behind him, not stopping until he'd mounted the staircase, reached the top, and fell down on his bed, Darol beside him. If he'd stopped, he knew he'd not have got back up again.

He tried to focus on Darol, to see where she was beside him, but it was as though there was a giant black spot in his line of vision, and around the spot everything was blurry; he could only tell where she was by feel. He rested his hands on her chest, feeling the rise and fall of it, and slowly allowed himself to calm. He was home, safe; they were safe.

He woke fifteen minutes later, without realising that he'd fallen asleep, and put an effort into climbing out of bed to close his bedroom door and, back in bed, pulling the blankets up over Darol and he, resting his head beside hers on the pillow.

He would be able to sleep now, until morning.

* * *

He was so glad, in the morning, that his mother, or father, didn't come in to wake him, or else they'd have discovered Darol there too, in his bed, and he woke her carefully, holding a finger to his lips so that she would know not to be too loud, and explained that it was a school day, and asked if her mom should have called.

Darol's voice was groggy, and sort of crackly when she answered. No, her mom was out of town, she wouldn't have called; she wouldn't have known.

She sat up and peered at him as though he was blurry. "What-? Oh, capers!"

"It's okay!" Bruno immediately reassured, moving too quickly and flinching at the pain in his skull, but pushing it aside to go to his friend. He'd already dressed for school, so that wasn't a big problem, but the problem would be Darol's school things, her missing skirt, and her purse with the keys to the house she shared with her mom.

"I feel sick, Bruno!" Darol told him, and moaned.

He rested her head against his body, and rubbed her back with his hands. "We'll work it out. We'll fix it, I swear."

"I think I left my stuff at Leroy's," Darol choked, coughing.

"Shh, it's okay," Bruno assuaged.

Darol lifted her face to look at him. "Let's just skip, just for today," she whispered huskily.

"No, that wouldn't be a good idea," Bruno told her. "We need to get your stuff back, so we need to go. I'll get it back, okay." He stepped away from her, turning to his wardrobe, and began rummaging through his things, looking for something to wear, then turned back to Darol. "Hey, wait here okay, it'll be fine; I'll see if I can find something of my sister's. I'll be back, soon. Just wait here."

Darol nodded weakly, and he made his way to the door.

Ursula had been fourteen when she'd disappeared, and naturally slim, but Bruno was hoping Darol would maybe fit one of her dresses; his mom kept all of Ursula's old things up in her room, and her clothes would be in the wardrobe, waiting for her to come home.

* * *

Bruno returned from Ursula's bedroom with a blue dress, hoping she wouldn't mind, wherever she was, and turned around to let Darol change into it.

He heard Darol's quiet voice tell him that it fit, and he turned back to pick up his schoolbag.

He'd go first, and they'd sneak out of the house. He could tell his parents later that there was a school assembly that he had to be early for, so he'd had to skip breakfast.

Everything would be fine.

Luckily, they got out of the house without drawing attention.

* * *

Bruno tried to concentrate on classes at school, but his head was swimming, and bolts pain would shoot through it at random, and all he really felt like doing was lying down and maybe drooling on himself.

But he had to get Darol's stuff back.

At lunch, he sought out Lenoi in the cafeteria, but Lenoi denied having Darol's stuff. He felt a wave of anger telling him to contest Lenoi's claim, but he fought it down, and headed for the toilets to throw up.

He didn't know where Darol was, but maybe she was hiding in the girl's toilets.

He heard the door open behind him, and wiped his mouth with a shaking hand, reaching to turn off the running tap, and almost leapt backward, and slipped over and hit his head again, when he turned his head and saw Samantha approaching him tentatively.

He managed to restrain himself from leaping anywhere, but couldn't manage a frown, and, if he'd gave a start, he couldn't help that either.

"I heard you talking to Lenoi in the cafeteria just before," Samantha said, and paused to dig around in a pocket of her bomber jacket, then, in her small hands, she was holding out Darol's purse. "I found this," she told him quietly, then nodded carefully, tugging her gaze away from him, as it seemed to want to linger, and walked, unhurried, out of the boy's toilets.

Bruno managed an almost muted, "Thanks," but the door had already closed, and he was alone.

He tucked Darol's purse into his pants pocket, and turned back to the basin, and turned the tap on and splashed cold water on his face, before heading out of the toilets.

His face stung with the water as he walked, and the pain in his head, but he walked to the cafeteria and waited until the bell for class, then, along with the other students, piled off for class where he knew he'd meet Darol and would be able to return her purse.

* * *

Darol returned Ursula's dress two days later, but she didn't stay for a snack or to talk, and Bruno walked upstairs, and slinked off to Ursula's room to replace the dress in her wardrobe, and spent a long time sitting at the bottom of the wardrobe, with the door open, and his eyes closed, imagining what his life would have been like if JR and Ursula had been a part of it, imagining what it would have been like right now, with an older brother and sister to turn to.

He left Ursula's room ten minutes later, and walked to his room to study, but only ended up lying down and taking a nap instead.

He figured Darol was rethinking wanting to be around him so much, now.

* * *

They were partnered up in the science lab two weeks later, and that was about the first time they'd exchanged more than a couple of words of greeting or departure in all those fourteen days, then, after school, Darol told him that she might need to copy his notes for geography, and was that okay, and he said, "Yeah, sure." It was okay; Darol and he would be walking home together, which was okay.

He sat on his bed and watched Darol copying out his geography notes, sitting at the study desk he'd got last year; he watched her hands as she wrote, the way she would flick her wrist a bit when it got tired, or scribble the biro in the margin of her exercise book to get the ink flowing again, the way her eyes moved from the pages of his book to hers, the little crinkle in her eyes when she was trying to figure out one of his letters, or words, but too polite to ask.

His handwriting had gone kinda downhill lately, or maybe he just didn't care so much, so he'd have to kick himself back into caring, he supposed; it was embarrassing when your best friend couldn't read your handwriting!

He felt his face redden at the thought, and was glad Darol was so intent on taking down the notes, and let his eyes play on her blonde hair, and the way the light danced in it.

He'd gotten used to it now, he supposed, though, he couldn't quite figure the right time to tell Darol this, though, also, he really wanted to tell her that he thought so, and that, sometimes, he was so full of shit, and not to take him seriously.

He felt warm, and safe, watching Darol sitting at his desk, in his chair, copying down notes totally boringly. Then, the warmness receded a bit, except for in his legs, and his face turned red, realising that maybe he'd been thinking on Darol's hair a little bit too much, and praying that Darol didn't look over just now. It'd go away, he was sure; it just needed time.

Darol wasn't into him like that, and, apparently, he was into her like that, though he hadn't really thought that he was, though, obviously his body was into her body, but he couldn't really do anything, because Darol was his best friend, and if she'd had any interest in them becoming anything more, then… she would have said, wouldn't she?

He tried to put his thoughts to the notes that Darol was copying down, trying to remember what he'd written that day, but it didn't seem to want to happen, so he stood up and walked over to the desk slowly.

"Darol, do you ever get scared of me?" he asked casually, wanting to kick himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"A lot less than I do of my mom," she replied, keeping her eyes on what she was copying down; in the past, she'd have looked around and up to his face to answer him.

This was definitely a bad idea.

"Do you think maybe we could kiss?"

"What?" Darol's eyes rolled around to meet his, and she whipped her chin around after them.

Bruno flinched. "Kiss?" he repeated. "On the mouth?"

Darol made a face, genuinely confused. "Why?"

"I think that's what I want to do right now," he answered lamely, shifting his feet nervously.

Darol kept her eyes on his face, as though maybe thinking that if she looked long enough, and hard enough, she'd find the answer to his sudden strangeness there.

"Do you ever get… feelings?" Bruno asked, then shook his head quickly. A couple of spots danced in his eyes, then disappeared. "No, I mean…"

"What do you mean?" Darol asked with crinkly eyes.

"That's just…" Bruno fought not to let his breath out, "really cute. I want to kiss you."

Darol calmly put the biro down she'd been writing with, and stood up, and tilted her chin up so that she could see his face properly.

Bruno frowned: She was going to let him? He felt a gentle shoe on his foot, and shuffled forward a bit.

"Go on, Bruno," she urged him in a slightly lowered voice, "I have to finish copying out your notes, and I've got pages to go."

He hunched over a bit, to get closer to her height, and dropped his face to hers, pressing his lips quickly against her own. He shuffled backward quickly.

"That's pretty bad," Darol informed him, her eyes wide on his face.

His face flamed. "What? Why?"

Darol shrugged, blinking. "I dunno, it just was."

"Are you-?"

"It's true. Try again."

He shuffled closer again, and tentatively put his arms around her own, which was more like at her shoulders, and placed his hands on her back, and lowered his mouth to hers, hoping not to knock into her head with his head, or anything. He pressed his mouth to hers, but didn't draw away immediately. Her lips were nice touching his, and he moved one of his hands up to cradle her neck.

"Bruno!" Darol's hand rested on his chest, her eyes large on his face.

He retracted his hand from her back and her neck instantly. "What?"

She widened her eyes. "You're-! Oh, crap! Did I do that?"

His face grew darker at once, the heat spreading to his neck, and in the small of his back, when he realised that she'd figured out what was up with him. "I'm… sorry…" was all he could manage.

Darol stepped away from him, and he felt his chest hurt.

Oh, great!

Darol stared at the floor, at her sneakers in front of his school shoes. "I mean, do you… want to?"

Bruno threw out a hand, which he rested on her shoulder, and felt her jump at the contact. "No! That's not-!"

"You don't?" Darol looked up into his face. "I'm sixteen, Bruno. I have 'feelings' too."

Bruno took his hand from her shoulder.

"We could if you wanted," Darol told him, slouching forward a bit, a bit of a whine in her voice.

"Do you…?"

Darol shook her head quickly, then stilled. "I don't know," she answered. "You haven't… _done_ anything with anyone else, have you?"

Bruno leapt forward suddenly, then quickly shuffled backward. "No."

"Oh, me neither," Darol told him casually, then glanced at the bed, as though for no particular reason.

Bruno stepped forward quickly, and took hold of her hand. It felt very warm to him.

Darol looked around at him slowly, eyes wide.

Maybe she was in shock. "I… will if… you… will," he said, feeling awkward all over, suddenly, as though he wasn't used to his own body, despite the sixteen years he'd spent in it.

"Well, obviously," Darol countered immediately, "I mean, otherwise, who else would we… there's no one else here, except for us." She glanced back to the bed. "I'm feeling very stressed at the moment," she told him. "Are you… too?"

"Yeah… Yes."

She tugged on his hand, leading him toward the bed.

"I really like your hair!" Bruno blurted.

"Okay; I'll write it in my diary."

He laughed, and Darol whipped around to face him.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded, then frowned.

Darol rolled her eyes. "Of course _I_ am." She sat down on his bed and patted a spot beside her. "I just don't know what you're supposed to do," she told him, glancing at him as he sat down. "I wouldn't want to do it wrong, I might accidentally hurt you."

"I don't want to hurt you either," Bruno relied back.

"I think I'll just lie down now," Darol told him, and lay back on the bed. She sat up suddenly, wide eyes trained on his face. "Are you still…?" She nodded, then dropped her face to his lap. "Oh, you are."

Bruno put a hand over her eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous!" she told him, lowering his hand from her face.

Bruno pulled her to him quickly and hugged her. "I'm sorry."

"Well, yes… Are you going to do it yet?" Darol wriggled around a bit. "I have to… Oh, catfish! Just let me get up again, and I'll take my things off first. I think you need a new mattress, I just got bit in the butt by a spring."

Bruno pulled away from her quickly. "Is it… bad?"

Darol laughed. "No, silly! I was having a lark!"

Bruno laughed a little bit too, then looked away as she jumped up, off the mattress, and began shedding her clothes.

"You can look, you know," she told him. "Go on, I want you to look at me."

"I'll just… take mine off too," Bruno mumbled.

Darol smiled. "I'm going to like this part."

Bruno flushed and paused, his hands on the fly of his school slacks.

Darol pushed him in the arm and began undressing again. "I'll be staring intently at my toes, I promise," she told him, and wiggled her toes for effect. "If I do peek, I'll not eyeball. I fear there are laws against such actions known as 'ogling,' to those in the know."

Bruno smiled and mentally kicked himself for acting like such a dunce.

* * *

Patience returned from the knitting club she attended, and began moving around the kitchen, picking up things and putting them down, though she had no idea what she was going to make for dinner that night. After a while, she drifted towards the small shelf mounted to the wall that was kept in the kitchen and took a cookbook off the shelf and sat down, perched on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, to leaf, first, through the index at the back of the book, then, through the pages at the front of the book, glancing at glossy photographs in mild interest, or maybe, it was closer to tepid interest.

She set the book down on the counter and set to making herself a coffee with her the coffee maker her husband, Christopher, had gotten her last Christmas. Whilst that was heating up, or whatever it did – she wasn't sure of the workings of the thing, though she knew it had cost a fair amount – she wandered out of the kitchen, and toward the staircase. Perhaps she'd make Bruno a coffee also, he was getting to that age, and it wouldn't hurt to ween him onto it.

She mounted the stairs and made her way up to the second storey slowly, letting her hand run along the banister, savouring the feel of the polished wood beneath her palm. At the landing, she strolled languidly toward Bruno's bedroom, unable to motivate herself to pick up her feet, and pick up her pace.

She reached the door to Bruno's room, but she didn't go in. On the wall beside the door there lay a strip of one-way glass, appearing as a mirror to whichever side of the glass was brightest, in which case, at this time of the day, and almost always regardless, was Bruno's bedroom. Through the long strip of glass, she saw her son lying in bed, though he wasn't alone; she saw his bare skin, smooth in its youthfulness, entangled with another's skin, both of them naked, the female's legs wrapped about his torso.

She felt sick, and, absurdly, at the same time, hollow with yearning. She reached out a hand and placed her palm onto the wall beside the strip of glass, needing the support. Her son had grown up, and whilst he was trying new things, testing his body's reactions and limits, Chris and her continued to grow apart. She was sure that it was more than the expansion of his business, more than the second branch he'd opened up in the next fairly-sized town; he was no longer hers alone. He was having an affair, she was sure of it.

She pressed a hand to her lower intestine, then, her hand seemed to slip downward of its own accord, and she ripped herself away from the wall, and from the glass, and moved, unsteadily, back down the hallway, and down the staircase. She could not believe herself; Bruno was her son, and as much entitled to youthful passion as anyone his age, as she herself had been at his age.

She had, after all, been only seventeen when she had married Chris, who'd been twenty-two, and, at that time, madly in love with her, this younger woman. But now he'd moved on, to another younger woman. It wasn't surprising, really, she was fifty-eight, and he was sixty-three; perhaps she'd started to make him feel old.

She certainly felt old.

* * *

She made a simple meal, meat and potatoes, three vegetables on the side, and even then, Chris wasn't home to join her and Bruno for dinner.

Bruno hugged her goodnight at the kitchen sink, whilst she was washing the used dishes down in preparation for their move to the dishwasher. She didn't turn, so he hugged her from behind, and she stood watching their reflection in the darkened window looking out onto the drive from which her husband's car was absent, still.

She waited until he'd reached the door to the kitchen, watching him in the glass, before whispering, "Goodnight, baby."

She looked away from the glass, down into the kitchen sink, and listened to her son's footsteps on the staircase.

* * *

In the deep hours of the night, she dreamt that Chris had come home drunk, convinced that she was carrying on an affair, that his wife was cheating on him, and he'd taken to the living room, a bottle of alcoholic beverage in hand, and that Bruno had gone downstairs to take the bottle from him, having been woken by his father's shouting.

Chris swung the bottle at Bruno, angered, and ranted at him that his mother was a whore. Then, with sudden steadiness, he backed his son into the wall and fixed him with a face twisted with anger. His hand moved to his son's groin and he laughed; shit, his only son was one too!

He untucked the gun he'd hidden in the back of his pants, and aimed it on Bruno's face, then, took a handful of his hair and directed him in front of him. The pair took the staircase, and walked to the bedroom that Bruno's parents shared.

Patience was woken from sleep then, and confused, she blinked rapidly in the bright light dousing the room, but, at the sight of her husband, and the gun pointed to her son's head, her blood turned to ice. If Chris did anything to her boy-

Whilst he stood with Bruno, gun pointed to his head, Chris made her confess her sins, confess her affair, and the horrible injustice she'd done him. He'd only ever loved her, but that'd not been enough for her.

That was when she got the notion that her husband was not only drunk on liquor, he'd taken something.

She confessed, sobbing, afraid for their son, afraid for the husband she still loved. She had no idea where he'd gotten the gun, or why.

Chris propelled Bruno forward then, toward his mother, lying in bed, and tossed him at her feet, then, with a harsh yank of his hair, pulled him up and tossed him again, this time, onto his mother.

Patience froze, deathly still. Was he going to shoot them together, was she going to have to hold her son, one last time, before her husband murdered them in their own house?

But Chris stood by the side of the bed, his eyes full of hard rage, and hatred, glaring at them both, and watching as Bruno scrambled up on the bed to cover his mother's body with his own, protecting her.

He didn't know what was wrong with his father, she could tell right away, and she was too afraid to speak to tell him, and then Chris was gesturing wildly with the gun, pointing it at them both, and finally his words sunk in.

He was telling Bruno to fix it, to fix her; he was the only one who could, apparently, he was no good, and she didn't want him anymore, but Bruno was young; he could fix the bitch.

Patience felt immediately ill, following Chris' thoughts, and then Chris was on the bed, too, on top of Bruno, shouting for him to fucking do as he was told, and the wall beside the bed shattered with a gunshot, spraying them with pastel-coloured red dust, and Patience's heart felt as though it'd stopped clean in her chest; Chris had pointed the gun at the back of Bruno's head, pressed firmly to his skull.

Crying and shaking, Patience put a hand to Bruno's face, and nodded. He would have to do what his father wanted, now, but it'd all be okay in the morning, she promised. She tried to make her eyes say everything that her lips could not, and reached her hands out and rubbed them in soothing circles on her son's chest.

Tears rolled down Bruno's face, but she didn't close her eyes; she couldn't close her eyes. If her son was to die tonight, she would look into his eyes when it happened; she, alone, would be there to say goodbye with her eyes.

She felt Bruno shift on top of her, his father hissing harshly into his ear, hand in his hair, gun pressed to his skull, his words too slurred to make out at the volume he was speaking over the loud sound of her own heartbeat in her head, in her ears. She didn't take her eyes from her son's face to look at her husband's mouth, to try to read his lips, she had to keep staring into Bruno's face, she had to let him know that nothing would happen to him, that he'd be fine. Inside, she prayed that she was right.

Then, she felt her son's cold, clammy skin pressed to hers, his legs against hers, and she felt her stomach erupt in sickness, and she vomited on the bed next to her, the act earning Bruno a knock to the head with the butt of Chris' gun.

Though she didn't hear her words, she felt her lips move then, and she knew she was begging Chris not to do this; she wouldn't betray him again, but his eyes registered nothing; he wasn't listening to her anymore.

She knew she shouldn't have, but she gave a gasp as Bruno's hands skimmed along her legs, shaking so much; when they reached her underpants, and began to slide them down her legs, a shiver ran through her; her son's hands were so cold.

She knew what would happen then, what had to happen then, but even so, she bit back a whimper, and felt vile sickness clawing at her throat again, burning it, and then, horribly, other sensations began to take over, sensations that weren't just anger and adrenaline, and her breasts heaved as she panted, feeling so, so sick.

She tried to shake the dream then, as her body responded to the intimacy, and her hips bucked, but it held fast, unwilling to release her. She gargled, groaning, and gathered her son to her, needing the comfort of her son's body, warm against her own, inside her, whilst all the while her husband watched on, his eyes unrecognisable as those of her soul mate, hard and vicious, at times, almost rolling in his head, and his finger on the trigger, squeezing it tighter whenever that happened.

Minutes passed, and, slippery with cold sweat, Bruno stiffened suddenly, and Patience felt him release inside her, and, looking up into her husband's face, she saw that it was dark with red.

His eyes glinting with an animalistic light, Chris pressed the muzzle of the gun to Bruno's calf and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Patience woke to the bright morning, and immediately feared that she'd slept in, and snapped open groggy eyes, but, when she did so, the alarm clock told her that it was only 5:02 A.M.; she tried to get back to sleep, but the dream and Chris' absence upset her stomach, and she rose and trudged tiredly to the adjoining bathroom, and sat on the edge of the bathtub for a long time, brushing her hair over and over.

She lay back down at 5:47, feeling empty inside. She missed her daughter.


	2. Chapter 2

"What happened last night, Chris?"

"I had some things I needed to do at the office, and they couldn't be postponed; for today. I… I forgot to call, I'm sorry."

Chris walked over to her and put his arms around her, but his hold was loose, no longer intimate; Patience wondered if he resented her.

"Bruno had a girl around yesterday. They were doing you know what."

Chris stepped apart from her sharply, his face a mask of shock.

Patience frowned. "Oh, Chris, he's old enough now; I'm only worried how old she is, and if it's safe. I don't want to stop him from doing the things normal teenagers his age do, and part of that is sexual experimentation; Bruno will not turn out like JR!"

Chris' face turned red. "Are you saying JR sexually abused and murdered Ursula because _we_ were too restrictive? What JR did was much more than a mere act of rebellion against his controlling parents!" he yelled.

Patience flinched, last night's dream still fresh in her mind, but did not back down. "Well, maybe… the start of it… I- I just don't want to take that chance with Bruno."

"You'd rather he end up in jail, or catch some disease?" her husband stormed. "You know Bruno isn't like JR – he's _our_ son!"

"That's right, Chris. He's our son, and I trust him. If he has problems, he'll come to one of us."

"Like Hell he will!"

Patience placed a hand on her husband's arm. "We can't possibly know what JR could have gone through before he came to us that might have contributed to his behaviour later in life, but we know Bruno._ He's our son._ We're supposed to love him, not make his life a living Hell. Don't you think he's been through enough – his brother raped and murdered his own sister, for God sake!"

"I'm not comfortable with this, Patience."

"Well stay uncomfortable, I don't care. This is about Bruno, not you, not I – Bruno, our son." She turned away from him, then, and walked away.

Chris didn't say anything to call her back, and just let her walk away, out of the room.

* * *

"Do you want to… I don't know… come around to my house tonight?" He refrained from saying 'again.'

Darol looked up from her packed lunch – a sandwich, one of those little fruit juices in a box with its own straw attached to the outside of the packaging, and a muesli bar – "Oh… I guess… I could. Do you want me to? I mean, it's so silly that we stopped, you know, visiting each other, don't you think so? You're my best friend."

Bruno blushed, and leant into the table, and said in a lowered voice, "I mean… to…"

"Oh, that's okay," Darol replied, quickly catching his meaning.

"Are you sure, I mean?"

"Of course."

Bruno blushed harder, and leant back in the cafeteria chair he was sitting in. "Okay. Cool."

Darol smiled.

* * *

At 1:34, Patience called Chris up at work. "You're not working too hard, are you?"

Chris' frown was audible in his voice. "Working too hard? No, I don't think I'm working too hard, Patience. Do you understand the intricacy to detail, the utter dedication that something like this takes? The time and effort? If anything – I'm not working hard enough!"

Patience sighed, tired. "Chris, really, we don't even know for sure that Bruno is going to _want_ to join the family business, or one day take it over, when we're…" she paused, "incapable." She wouldn't say old, they were both already past that point in their lives; they were old.

"What else would he _want_ to do, Patience? First he's fucking everything within a hundred mile radius, and now, don't tell me, he wants to be a fucking circus performer? Is that it?"

Patience's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and anger. Such a thing wasn't discussed over the telephone; she'd never heard her husband use such language before. "He isn't… It was just one girl; you never know, she may be his girlfriend."

"What makes you so sure this _is_ the _first_ time he's done it, Patience!" Chris shot back hotly.

"Of course it is!" Patience rebuked, ashamed that her husband could even suggest such a thing about their own child.

"Because you're such a great fucking mother, and I'm nobody's fucking father, an absent father! Is that it, Patience?! _You'd_ know – because you knew with JR and Ursula!"

Patience's whole face flamed red hot, and she slammed the telephone down. How dare he say that! How dare he!

The sound of the telephone's shrill ring pulled her from her stunned anger, and she picked it up.

"Cox Residence. Who may I say is calling?"

"If you knew, if you _fucking_ knew, what was going on between JR and Ursula, and you did nothing – then that's it, we're through!"

The line disconnected, and Patience sat shaking all over, reeling from her husband's words.

* * *

In the beginning, it'd been her who'd pinned Ursula's disappearance to JR, and subsequently accused him of sexually abusing her, then murdering her. It hadn't been Chris, he'd just supported his wife, then, slowly, he'd begun to connect the dots that Patience had connected long ago. Now, Patience wasn't so sure she'd gotten it right all those long years ago at all; maybe she'd overlooked something; maybe Chris resented her now, for forcing him to keep up what he'd seen as a lie, or maybe, now, he'd begun to believe it, truly believe it himself, and it had turned on her, he'd turned on her, and was seeing all of her faults afresh; seeing everything he had done, and everything she hadn't.

Maybe it'd never been JR, and she'd ruined everything for him, merely because he'd been old enough when they adopted the pair – brother and sister, the girl just months old, the boy eleven years passed – because he'd always been a liability to her perfect dream, to their perfect family; she'd only ever wanted a baby girl, but they'd been family; at least, they'd been found together, and they'd had those eyes, matching eyes, and she couldn't bear to separate them, only, in the end, she'd done more than separate them; she'd destroyed them; she'd destroyed JR, after all he'd gone through already, after the disappearance of his only true family; she'd gone for blood, blood for blood.

Maybe, when all the time she'd been gunning for JR, the real killer had been out there, tidily cleaning things up, packing away loose strings, disposing of Ursula's body so that she'd never been found ever again. Maybe, all she'd done was cover up for a killer, by accusing the one person who'd loved Ursula more than anything in this world, just as she had.

Maybe, she'd been a bad mother all along.

Maybe she'd failed not only her daughter, but her son as well.

* * *

"What do you say; why don't you give me what you owe me?"

Samantha twisted her head to the side to avoid the smell of Aylmer's heavy breath in her face, and forced back a choking sound as he squeezed her throat between his fingers with increasing pressure.

"I gave you the purse, dumplin', now's the part where you give me what you promised; your end of the bargain, shortcakes."

"No…"

"Lister!"

Aylmer twirled about at the sound, toward the direction the voice had come from, tightening his grip on Samantha's throat in a choke hold. "Ain't nothin' to see, bub," he told the boy standing at the end of the corridor. "Jus' you move along now."

The boy stood very still for a moment, watching the pair.

Aylmer guessed he was about their age, maybe younger; he'd didn't recall seeing him in school before, so maybe he was a year younger, though he was dressed in the most ridiculous shirt Aylmer had ever seen in his life, and he figured he'd remember _that_ shirt if he'd ever seen it before; likely meant the kid was some kind of hick, he thought, unable to suppress a snigger.

"It's Bobby, not Bub," the boy told him, in an accent Aylmer was sure wasn't native to Maryland, and began to walk over.

"I don't care if it's Marylou, bub; business between this here girl and I ain't none o' yours, so why don't you jus' disappear, so as we ain't gon' be havin' no accidents here now." Alymer always found that people were more intimidated if he spoke like he was some kind of dumb, like he couldn't rightly help if he got aggressive and went too far.

"See, I can't do that, Lister; Sammy here, she's my little sister, and we all gotta look out for our families now," Bobby told him, as he approached. "I guess that means we got ourselves a small conflict of interest, you might say. Now, I know you ain't the bad type, inside, and I know you don't wanna hurt my lil sister; you just gotta let go of her now, I'm afraid she can't breathe, you holdin' her so tightly."

Samantha tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come out.

"Don't come any closer!" Aylmer warned, shooting Samantha a short glance, then returning his attention to Bobby. "She looks fine to me."

"Well, maybe she looks that way now, Lister, but soon, she ain't gonna look that way no more; she's gonna look a whole lot worse, the way you holdin' her, and that's gonna make me mad. You don't wanna make me mad, do you; when we was gettin' off to such a fine start, too?"

"Stop calling me that!" Aylmer spat, his face red with anger. Who did this freak think he was, anyway? "That isn't my name."

"It's the name your momma and pop gave you isn't it?"

Aylmer growled. "I said, 'Don't come any closer!'"

"What'll you do, if I do?" Bobby asked, stopping suddenly. "I'm better than you; faster, smarter. You'll only lose."

Aylmer barked out a laugh, incredulous and enraged, and released his hold on Samantha's throat, lunging at Bobby.

Samantha coughed thinly, her legs not able to keep her up, and slipped down the wall to the floor.

"Run, Samantha! Now!"

Samantha turned to the wall in a jittering motion, and forced herself weakly on to shaking legs. She pushed herself away from the wall with all the strength she had, and ran as fast as she could, drawing great, hacking gasps of air.

She didn't look back.

* * *

"You're not my brother," was the first thing she said when she stumbled away from the high school fence, toward the road, and the boy, out of breath, took hold of her arm and let her lean against him to help keep her up.

"No," Bobby replied simply.

"Where do you get that accent from, anyways?" she gasped out, once they'd crossed the road and were heading down the footpath away from the school.

"Nebraska."

"I guess they still wear bellbottoms there, huh," Samantha commented, stopping to cough, the sound harsh and hacking. She shook her head. "What happened to Aylmer?" she asked the concrete.

"I think he's in trouble," Bobby told her.

Samantha raised her head to look into his face. "Did you hurt him?"

Bobby widened his eyes, looking away from her, just past her face, into the distance, or maybe at the space of nothing between them, not quite seeing her face. "He ran into one of the teachers. I don't think they liked that."

Samantha took a deep breath, and found that she could breathe easier already. "I think I'm okay. I mean, I think I'm going to be okay."

"Why did you promise him something like that?" Bobby asked her.

Samantha's eyes went round in horror and she leapt away from him, pushing him away from her violently. "Oh my God! You're not one of his friends, are you? Oh my God, you're in this together, aren't you?"

Bobby steadied himself against the fence and frowned. "No, I don't make friends very well. I usually lose friends easier than I make them. I'm not Lister's friend; I'm not in anything with him."

Samantha pointed her finger at him accusingly. "Why do you keep calling him that? That isn't his name!"

"His name is Lister Aylmer Coolidge," Bobby told her.

"Just… get away from me, alright!" Samantha shrieked hysterically, and tore away from him, along the footpath.

Bobby looked at the footpath with big eyes.

* * *

A little girl's voice spoke from behind Bobby, some minutes later, "Hi, my nanna said she doesn't want you looting around near her fence; she sent me out to tell you before she puts the dog out," the little girl informed him.

Bobby turned about quickly. The little girl was about seven or eight, and dressed in a _Dora the Explorer_ tee shirt, purple tracksuit pants, and _Hannah Montana_ sneakers. Her brown eyes were narrowed in a squint, watching his face absorbedly.

He stepped away from the fence sharply. "Sure, right, yes. I shall be on my way, presently."

The little girl scrunched up her eyes a bit more, and pulled a face. "You talk funny," she told him.

Bobby nodded, eyes wide. "Yes, I can be most amusing, on occasion, Cherish Love."

The little girl stared, annoyed. "It's Cherish; Love is my middle name, and I think it's stupid."

"Well, now, 'stupid' is a strong word; why don't you run along and tell your Grandma Diane that she ain't got nothin' to worry about, I'm already gone."

"No you aren't!" Cherish pointed out loudly. "I can still see you."

"That's cos you're facin' me, and you ain't runnin' along to tell your Grandma about how everythin's fine," Bobby told her. "You just head off now and you won't be able to see me at all, I promise."

Cherish's face sharpened with anger as she followed him along the fence line. "I don't believe you! I think you're a liar!"

"There are them that do, darlin'."

"Go away!" Cherish screamed.

Bobby covered his ears with his hands. "Oh, I intend to do just that, darlin'," he told her, before hurrying up his pace.

She glared after him all the way, until she could no longer see him, then she turned and headed back toward her grandmother's front porch.

* * *

"Oh, those are some powers of persuasion you got there, Bowman," Bobby commented to himself. "You're just wonderfully charming."

He sighed.

"Oh, yes. Send the tot out; anything unfortunate happens, the kid gets it; you're fine, lock up the front doors, windows, too, call the authorities, watch the clock on the wall, clock's still ticking, you're still alive, should be here soon, sort it all out for you. Worry not, the daughter-in-law's still young, she'll manage a few more before her time's done, biological clock stops ticking, so to speak. All the same, every year, not a day done, and they've already bust all but one of their presents, yours first. Crazy folk ain't rightly right to be wand'rin' a good, upstandin' neighbourhood like this; should be shot, put down, should be."

"I beg your pardon, young man, you should just watch your mouth-"

"Presentation for school, madam," Bobby told the woman automatically.

"I should think so," the woman admonished, arms crossed, looking at Bobby now, plastic shopping bags that she'd just unloaded from the back of her car, parked in the drive, at her feet. She cast a critical eye over his attire. "People are going to think you're not right, talking to yourself like that, out in the open for any nosy someone to listen in."

Bobby frowned. "Yes," he agreed.

"Well, I just think you should practise in your head from now on; until you get home, young man."

Bobby nodded. "I will definitely-" He lurched forward and raced past the woman suddenly, toward the house, ignoring the woman's shouts, asking him what he was doing, then, telling him that he wasn't allowed to go into her house.

The woman abandoned her open car and her shopping, and sprinted into the house after him, and ran into the kitchen to find him holding her four-year-old daughter, Eileen, and the saucepan of macaroni and cheese she'd put on the stove before she'd gone out to unpack the groceries from the car lying on the floor, its contents strewn across the floor and the kitchen chair Eileen must have pushed across the room from the table to try and reach the saucepan on the stovetop.

"Look, it's mummy!" the boy said suddenly, turning to face her, and holding out the four-year-old.

The woman took the child from him, and stared at him as though he was mad.

"Sorry," Bobby said quickly, "she was hungry. But I think she really wanted chips… the ones from the yellow packet with the… red star on it…" He frowned. "I have to… practise my presentation… I'll g-go…"

The woman blinked.

"I'm… going…" Bobby said, and stepped carefully around the mother and daughter, and walked slowly out of the room.

The woman turned to watch him as he went.

"I saw… through the window… you were facing… away… toward the road… looking… looking at me, so you didn't see… but I saw…" He blinked, and turned back at the door, looking at the floor instead of the woman's face. "I apologise, ma'am, I had no right… barging into your home like… this…"

The woman stared at him. "You have good eyes," she said slowly. "I hope your presentation goes well."

Bobby looked up suddenly. "So… do I," he said, before he left the room.

The woman hurried out after him, into the hallway. "Thank you! By the way," she called after him.

* * *

At the end of the block, Bobby turned the corner and walked a couple of steps, and sat down on the footpath, against a high corrugated metal fence painted in dark orange, and rocked back and forth.

Behind the fence, three short orange trees grew silently.

* * *

Chris returned home early, a bouquet of roses in hand, the sort which came in crackly plastic wrapping plastered with little red love hearts and the words 'Love, Like Nature's Gifts, Is A Many Splendoured Thing.'

He told Patience how dreadfully apologetic he was for his outburst earlier in the day, and that it had been lovely of her to ring him up, and to try to cheer him up, but that he'd just gotten off the phone, and he'd been already quite wound up from that whole business, and, oh, he was so sorry.

Patience listened to his explanation with a hard expression, but then when he stepped closer and held out the two dozen roses to her, she accepted the roses, and hurried away to put them in some water in a vase; Chris already forgiven.

The flowers were so lovely, she confessed, and Chris walked up to her to stand beside her, and when she turned to look at him, he kissed her lingeringly, and she pulled him closer to her with a smile, but, as he was kissing her, he couldn't see her smile.

After a few protracted moments, he broke the kiss, and Patience said she'd put a coffee on.

* * *

Patience rinsed her hands off under the running tap, as, beside her, Eileen Danners, one of the single mothers in their knitting club, recounted the highlights of her day as she perked up her new hairdo in the mirror.

"I was terrified, I thought he'd gone mad, or _was_ mad, you know, because I'd said a few words to him… he was talking to himself, as unaware as you please, just sounding like he'd just gone right off the deep end, and off his hatter, you know, and I thought I'd say a little something about that, and then he goes running off, and he's running into _the house_… I can tell you, when I saw him with Eileen, I about died." She turned to Patience for dramatic effect. "But it was all good; apparently he'd seen Eileen through the kitchen window, and she'd been about to pull a hot saucepan on top of herself… Before you ask, she's fine, just a little shaken, but I sat her down with her favourite chips, and she was right as rain in no time-"

"My husband bought me flowers," Patience interrupted Eileen's confession. "A bouquet of red roses. Twenty-four of them; I've put them in a vase, though at first I thought I'd have a hard time of it, making them all fit in the same vase, but they fitted fine. I'm afraid he's having an affair, but I still love him so much."

Eileen's eyes widened and she stared at her for a long moment. "Oh, you poor dear!" she chirped. Then added, "I've heard nothing. Oh, it must be awful for you; wondering. Oh, I hope it isn't true, I really do."

Patience turned her head to glance at her reflection in the mirror, but her eyes quickly strayed to Eileen's, and her new hair style. She felt tearful, suddenly, and muttered a hasty, "Excuse me," and exited the restroom hurriedly.

* * *

In the memorial hall's supper room, Patience sat in a red plastic chair, too low to the floor, and wondered if attending knitting club two days a week – Thursday and Friday – was too much, and if she should drop the Friday club meetings.

She sipped a weak, lukewarm coffee as she pondered her situation, and sunk into an increasing state of displeasure.

Maybe she was just depressed, she thought, and reached for a slice of watermelon sitting on a platter in the middle of the table.

She retracted her hand, deciding to let the watermelon go. She'd just order in tonight, she decided, rather than bother herself with whipping up something fancy; it'd be sure to please Bruno, at least.

From the doorway, Patience heard Eileen chatting to Randy Evans. "You know, I've definitely seen him before, I just couldn't place him. It was frustrating, I can say. He was wearing the funniest little outfit, too, so I wonder if he's part of the drama club, you know? I think I will; I think I'll ask Suzanne later."

"How is Suzanne's backhand comin' along?" Randy spoke in her high-pitched nasal voice.

Eileen's eldest daughter played tennis.

"Oh, grandly," Eileen replied snappily, in a bright tone.

Patience had never much gone for mothers who named their daughters after themselves.

* * *

Patience ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner, and served it on plates from the cupboard.

Bruno pretended to be pleased, despite the fact that he didn't like KFC at all, or, for that matter, really any form of chain-restaurant's fast food offerings.

He didn't want to upset his mom, she seemed kinda depressed lately.

When Darol knocked at the front door at seven, he was busy rinsing off the dishes for the dishwasher, and Darol was let in by Chris, who'd been in his study and had heard her knocking, and she sat down in the kitchen at the table to watch him doing housework with a smile on her face.

His mom had gone on up to bed, he said, she was kinda tired, so they couldn't play any loud music or anything, but, silently, he thought, that it wasn't as though they ever did anyway; that'd been more the sort of thing they'd always done at Darol's place, over the newsagent/boutique confectionary outlet her mom ran.

His dad left after a bit; some things at the office to take care of, but Patience was upstairs in their room, so he didn't bother with promises to be back soon, or before bedtime.

Bruno wished Chris a safe ride, but his dad walked ahead without hearing and quickly pulled the door shut after him.

Bruno went over to lock the door, and glanced at Darol, but, of course, she didn't have a dad, so she didn't have to be disappointed by the weird, lame stuff he did, or when he ignored her.

Darol took his hand, in the hallway outside the kitchen, and they walked toward the staircase, Darol wearing her schoolbag. "Don't worry," she told him gently. "I'm sure he really didn't hear you, or he was too busy thinking about things at work to hear. My mom does it all the time."

Bruno frowned, taking the first step on the staircase. "Mine thinks I like KFC. I hate KFC."

"Oh, I think it's okay… sometimes…"

Bruno sighed. "I guess."

* * *

Darol dumped her schoolbag by his bedroom door, and they sat down on his bed, side by side, and practised kissing. Bruno liked it, and he hoped Darol did too.

Her mouth tasted like bubblegum, so he wondered what she'd had for dinner, and hoped that the yucky cold fat on the top of his mouth didn't gross Darol out. After a while, he thought he'd ask her what she had for dinner, because he couldn't guess, and he just kept wondering.

"Cabbage," she replied lamely.

"Is it good?" Bruno asked her. "Or really bad?"

"It's okay, I guess," Darol told him. "My mom and I both like red best, so that makes it easier at the shops, I suppose."

Bruno looked at her small hands, clasped in her lap neatly. "What other kinds are there?"

"Well, you know, there's white, and there's all kinds of… like… oriental ones, like bok… well, it has bok in it… maybe bok chow, anyway, and its kinda curly, or, more like bubbly… they're really cute." She frowned, glancing into his face. "Haven't you ever had cabbage?"

"I don't think so," Bruno answered.

"Well, you've had coleslaw?"

"Yeah. All chopped up, it looks like someone swallowed a bucket of confetti, then chucked it up again, which is why it was all sloppy."

Darol laughed, pulling a yucky face, and pushed him in the arm. "The really light green stuff is cabbage. But my mom boils it, like in a pot."

"It sounds gross."

"It's not so bad," Darol admitted.

"It's not as good as kissing you."

Darol blushed and smiled at him.

Bruno put his hand over hers in her lap and squeezed it. "Darol, do you think it would be okay if I told you something? I know it's really lame, and, I mean, it's not forever, but it's how I feel now, so I kinda wanna say it, you know."

"You can say it," Darol told him kindly.

Bruno made an effort to look especially deeply into her eyes. "I love you," he told her.

She stared at him for a long moment, then she leant away from him a bit, leaning backward a little on the bed, and stretched out her arms in front of her like a zombie, then turned to him and leant in close and wrapped her arms around him. "I love you as well. You're sweet, and I think you're very cute to say that, and brave, and you're very handsome, to me anyway, and I'm wondering if I can have a treat now." She laughed lightly, mindful of what he'd told her earlier about his mom not feeling well.

"What do you want for a treat?" Bruno asked.

Darol grinned, and took his two hands in hers. "You're wearing too much clothes, Bruno. Please take some of it off, and I'll give you a cherry with low-fat cream on top."

"Nah, I want the full-taste cream," Bruno joked, and Darol giggled.

"It's supposed to taste like real cream," Darol informed him, her voice tinkling lightly, "normal cream with the normal amount of fat, I mean, but with less fat."

"Maybe I'll just have you! Is that okay?"

Darol nodded slowly. "Yes…" she answered.

* * *

Patience sat up in bed, restless, and too weary to sleep, and sat up to get out of bed, and slipped off the mattress. She lumbered across the room, trying not the knock into anything at the sudden wave of draining tiredness that overcome her, and slipped out into the hallway.

She walked up the hallway a while, then paused at Bruno's room, noticing he wasn't alone. She stood in front of the strip of glass and watched Bruno and the girl for a long while, until she noticed a schoolbag slouching against the wall by the door on the floor in Bruno's room, and saw that it was Carol's daughter's _My Little Pony_ schoolbag.

Oh, Bruno's girlfriend was Darol.

She wondered how Carol, who'd always had a crush on JR, would take it if she told her of her daughter's changed relationship with her son. But she would never do that, she realised, unless it got out of hand, or something happened. If Darol got pregnant, and was secretly planning an abortion-

She pushed the horrible thought away, then wondered if she should have had a talk with Bruno. She couldn't remember him ever mentioning having Sex Ed classes at school, and her belief did not subscribe to contraception, but maybe that wasn't practical, in this day and age, with young people today.

She certainly hoped Darol was healthy, and disease-free. If Bruno were to get sick, she'd never forgive herself.

She stumbled away from the wall. Oh, what was she doing! It was disgusting, spying on her own son, because she was lonely.

She trudged slowly away, down the hallway, and resolved that hoping to feel loved through her son and his girlfriend wasn't the right way to go, it was awful and depraved, and if it had been anyone else, she'd have been horrified beyond measure, so it wasn't for her.

She'd go out instead, have some wine, relax a little. She didn't think Chris would even notice; she'd be home before he was.

The flowers he'd bought her still lay in their vase, proud, their red bold, striking against the kitchen table's polished cherry, though a compliment to it, also, but worn, wilted. Their petals would curl and brown soon, and they'd have to be put out, but maybe that'd be days, yet.

She left without fetching a coat, and headed for her Jaguar, the special, low-heeled shoes she'd bought at the podiatrist's crunching as they settled upon the white pebbles in the drive, then lifted heavily again.

* * *

Friday was when all the clubs were open, nightclubs and dance bars, the late night bistros, but Patience just drove around and around in her car, before, after half an hour, forty minutes, deciding to pull over.

She turned on the radio, frustrated that it'd been so hard to find a spot, but found that the radio announcer's voice only made her tireder, and crankier, and pushed open the car door and got out, slamming it closed behind her with tipsy force – she wasn't, of course, tipsy; just tired – and ambled away, imagining her husband, off with his newer, younger model of her, but who was she kidding, she'd never go running after him, she'd never resort to petty spying, or bribery like some women on television dramas did, by taking photographs and holding them under their husband's noses and declaring fearlessly, stoically: 'There, there's your incentive, and my lawyer's seen it too!'

She'd never do that; she was far too worn out to even consider it. What did she know of cameras, and zoom lenses, anyway? A few of the words, the terminology, which she hoped wasn't garbled beyond comprehension, and that was all.

She was pathetic and old, it was no big surprise really that her husband would be in the market for something snappier, zestier.

He'd gotten her flowers – red roses, for God sake – and she'd put them in water and ordered in, then gone upstairs to bed.

Maybe she'd have started looking around too, if she'd been him – and maybe she would, now.

* * *

She spied Randy Evans in the bar of the hotel/café she'd just entered, and did an about turn. If Randy was present, she wasn't going to be.

Randy was rotten with alcohol, and about as good with keeping her mouth shut, or keeping anyone's confidential matters under wraps, as she was with a beer or two.

Not even Patience would be as set back by mere _beer_ as Randy, though, she supposed, it'd been years since she'd had beer – so what the Hell would she know?

She left the bar and decided on a flashier joint, its loud, cacophonous racket spilling out onto the sidewalk, scrambling the thoughts of passers by, and interfering with cell phone calls, its heavy beat pounding through the ground, and masking any brawls that might have erupted inside.

Patience ducked inside, regardless, pleased to have been allowed in, but it wasn't a nightclub, strictly, and certainly nothing exclusive and 'hot.'

* * *

She ordered vodka and tonic, though she couldn't stand the taste of tonic water, thinking that it's at least serve as a prohibition to drinking too fast, or too much, but even this effort was too little, because she soon found herself on her second vodka and tonic, and badly needing to take a pee.

She headed off for the restroom, and tried not to be knocked about, or knock into too many people on the way over – she'd enquired with the barmaid, and she'd pointed out the neon sign – not bothering to take the long route, but cutting directly through the crowd, instead.

She hit the restroom door, and used her body weight to push the door open, which wasn't all that great, but which did the deed, nonetheless, and hurried to a cubicle and locked it behind her.

The back of the cubicle door was littered with lewd messages scrawled in texta or scratched into the soft chipboard, and Patience sat staring at it, thinking of her son's bedroom walls at home, which he'd decorated himself, when he'd still been crazy about graffiti.

She kind of started to nod off, so she finished on the toilet, and washed her hands at the sink, holding her hands up to her nose to smell the lingering scent of the liquid soap on her hands once she'd washed them, and moved over to the automatic hand drier, only to find that the things wasn't working, and pulling out what she thought was possibly the second last remaining paper handtowel, and quickly wiping her hands dry, and scrunching it up and dumping it in the trash.

* * *

Outside the restroom, the place was louder than she'd remembered, but she pushed on through the people and the racket, and found a place at the bar again, then, deciding to give up the alcohol, asked for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter – it'd been years since she'd smoked, and it'd never been seriously – and slipped off the barstool and walked outside to light up a cigarette in the beer garden outside, overlooking the parking lot out back of the hotel.

The air was nippy, especially without a coat, but she'd had enough alcohol to ignore the coolness for the moment, despite the logical fact that it was still working on her body, whether she felt it or not, and choked on the cigarette, the first few times she drew a drag.

After ten minutes or so, though, she'd pulled through, and she stood looking up at the night's sky, which she couldn't really see because of the lights and the gunk in the air, but thought would be a nice change to look at for a while anyway.

She heard the sound of arguing, surprisingly clear over the racket from inside, and stepped aside to allow the angry couple past, taking another drag from her cigarette.

"Tashi, baby, I need your help. I can't… feel… where to go…"

Patience whipped about swiftly, and stood staring at the boy with a disapproving look on her face, but, when she saw that he wasn't with anyone, she took another drag and walked over.

The boy's eyes turned in his head, and he reached a hand out in front of him.

Patience stretched out her own hand, transferring her cigarette to the other hand, and took hold of his hand. "Need some help there, guy?"

The boy's eyes flew open at the contact, and he stared at her as though maybe she was the monster at the end of the chapter, the one that always pops up for a good cliff hanger. "I'm looking… for…" He shook his head. "N-no…" he blinked quickly, taking in her face, "o-one…"

Patience let go of his hand. "Your girlfriend, huh?" she said. "Tashi?"

The boy shook his head, then frowned. "Not… anymore… I think…"

"That's too bad," Patience told him, and tilted her head. "For Tashi, I mean."

"I… didn't mean to… alarm you…"

"No. No, you didn't," Patience replied. "I'm quite fine."

The boy smiled, with some effort.

Patience touched his cheek. He had really very nice eyes. "What did you mean… earlier… you couldn't feel… You can see me, can't you?"

The boy nodded slightly.

Patience smiled. "A little too much, huh?" she enquired.

"I guess."

"That's real sad about your girlfriend," she told him, and took her fingers from his face to offer him her hand. "I'm Patience."

The boy blinked, and took her hand. "How do you do, Patience?" he asked her.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking!" she chimed.

"That's f-f-fine…"

Patience frowned. "You feeling alright, hon?"

"It's so… loud… con… fusing…"

Patience stepped forward and rested a hand on his arm in a comforting gesture. "I understand, hon."

The boy screamed, and reeled backward from her, knocking into the high wood fence behind him. "No, don't!"

Patience frowned in concern, and took a few cautious steps toward him. "Honey, are you alright?"

"She doesn't want to… You're hurting her! She's s-" He dropped to the ground quickly, and pushed out his hand.

Patience scooted forward and got down into a crouch to take his shaking hand. "Tashi Evans, is that who you mean, hon?" she asked him gently. "Are you some kind of… family friend?" She refrained from saying 'drug addict;' for all she knew, he could've been a cousin, or long-distance relative. Randy's little girl had gone missing two years back, just like her Ursula, and her body had never been recovered.

The boy's eyes fixed to her suddenly, and she felt a chill run over her.

"Took her… took her away…" the boy said, "mother said she was the Devil… didn't want her… didn't want her anywhere near her… had to make her go away… came and took her… people came and took her, and mother watched, didn't stop them… said she'd never been right, was to be expected, with a daddy like hers… gone… never coming back… won't come back… 'Goodnight, Tashi. I'd say it was nice knowing ya, but I can't say as it has bin…'"

Patience let go of his hand, sobered. He'd gotten Randy's accent and intonation near perfect. Her head ached something awful. "Why don't I buy you something," she offered. "Something that'll help."

The boy's eyes turned to the top of his head, and his head started to tilt backward, but Patience put a hand on his face.

"Hon, you still with me? I'll buy you a drink, yeah? I know you're probably not old enough, but I think you need it." She certainly did, after this. She flicked her cigarette away from her, and pushed herself to her feet efficiently, and extended her hand to help him up.

He took her hand.

* * *

"What can I get for you?" the barmaid asked, approaching the pair, and glancing at the boy with a worried expression.

"He's feeling real down," Patience explained, and lowered her voice, "his girlfriend just dumped him…"

"That's no good," the barmaid told them.

"We'll have- Oh, why not? Whisky… yeah."

"Ice?"

"No ice," Patience told her. She patted the boy's arm, and watched the barmaid for a moment as she turned away to fix their orders. "What's your name, hon?" she asked, turning to the boy, who'd rested his face in the bar. She frowned. "It isn't so bad, sweetheart," she told him. "Don't be so down on life; there's always something to look forward to, you know that." She didn't know why she was saying such things, things she didn't believe in, but it seemed like the right thing to do in the instance. She leant over and picked him up a bit, her hands on his arms. "Hey, you're upsetting me. I'm starting to think you're not well."

The boy sat up on the barstool, and stared ahead of him blankly.

"Why don't you look at me, huh, hon? I'm a friend, yeah? Why don't you tell me your name, hmm?"

The boy took a shaky breath and looked over at her. "Bobby…"

"Oh, now that's real cute," Patience told him. "See, I don't know why you're so afraid of it; it's a real nice name, hon."

The barmaid returned with their drinks, and Patience handed over her credit card.

"Th-thank you, Bonny," Bobby said.

"That's alright, sugar," the barmaid replied, turning back to Patience. She didn't say, 'You don't need to thank me, I'm getting paid.' It was nice to hear once in a while, even if it was just manners, and second nature. She supposed the boy must have been local, though, if he knew her name, and from what she'd heard, his accent sounded local enough.

* * *

Patience picked up the tumblers and turned to find a table, then glanced to her side, at Bobby. "Hey, you sound different!"

Bobby frowned, and looked at the floor, then turned and walked away.

Confused for a moment, Patience hurried to follow him. Didn't he want his drink, after all? She stopped when she'd finally caught up to him, and took a seat beside him at the table. "So there was one free, after all!" she commented cheerily, and placed the tumblers down on the tabletop. She sipped her whisky, then placed it back down on the table. "Where are you from, Bobby?"

Bobby frowned at the top of the table. "Earth."

Patience laughed. "Which state, hon?" she rephrased, with amusement.

"Nebraska," Bobby replied.

"Oh, you sound like yourself again!" Patience cried.

Bobby rubbed a hand on his face.

"I'm sorry; you've a headache, and I'm making it worse, aren't I?"

Bobby looked at her. "No," he said plainly.

Patience sighed. "Phew! I'm glad, I was starting to feel really awful."

Bobby made no reply, but stared at his drink, sitting on the table in front of him.

"It's not the worst," Patience told him, as though she thought maybe he was dubious of its quality. She dropped her face to check her watch, and frowned. It wasn't that late, was it? Would it hurt to stay out a little longer; just a little longer?

Bobby started coughing loudly, and she looked up quickly and patted him on the back, watching him carefully. His eyes had gone all watery.

She wondered, for a moment, if Bruno was asleep already. She hadn't gone in to wish him goodnight. "I think I should take you home, huh?" she said. "Can you tell me where that is, Bobby? Where home is?"

"Melody."

"Sorry, honey?"

"My home is where Melody is," Bobby said quietly, staring at the empty tumbler.

"You live…" she shook her head, "near some sort of music store, or musical instruction… place?"

"Melody loves me, and I love her."

"Oh, my stars! Melody's a person, is that it? Did I get it?"

Bobby blinked and turned to look at her.

"She's your girlfriend?"

"I love her," Bobby repeated.

Patience frowned and put her arms around him. How sad; he loved Melody, but she didn't love him… well, maybe as a friend, but it wasn't the same as how he loved her.

"Can you tell me where your house is, hon?"

"No house…" Bobby said slowly, slurring his words, "house was all sleepy, went to sleep, forgot about people… no more house, not a house anymore, just a thing… like a box… made out of trees, and metal, and-"

"It's alright, hon," Patience told him. "I have a place, I'll just say you're a friend of my son, Bruno. You do go to Bruno's school, don't you?"

"Bruno Barnard Cox…"

"That's right, hon. That's my son's name."

Patience sighed heavily. Oh dear, what had she gotten herself in for?

"But he always writes Barnaby for school…"

"Oh, does he?"

"Barnard sounds like a name someone would give to a chicken…"

"Well, we don't have chickens, except in the freezer."

"They keep people in freezers… keep them in there so they won't go bad…"

"I'm sure they do, hon; I'm sure they do just that," Patience told him, as she helped him to his feet, and began back through the crowd, toward the hotel's entrance.

Bobby began mumbling slurred words Patience couldn't make out, except that she supposed they weren't in English; they sounded as though they were in another language, and English was the only language Patience knew.

"Shh, it's okay, now. It's okay. You don't have to talk; I've got you now. You're okay, I've got you. It's going to be okay."

"I only want Tashi," Bobby told her in a surprisingly understandable voice as they exited the hotel, but Patience wasn't feeling the most steady herself, with trying to stop Bobby from falling over his own feet – he was heavier than he looked – and plastering a fake smile that would please the security man at the door – since when had pubs started having security officers at the doors, she wondered – so she let Bobby talk, it was easier than trying to tell him not too, and it wasn't as though he was at his most comprehensible.

"Tashi's fine, hon," she told him, once they'd made it outside into the clear, biting air, where, all around them, evening was in full bloom, and Patience could breathe again, properly. "Everything's fine."

"Goodbye," Bobby mumbled, his eyes starting to close.

Patience shook him a bit, careful not to go to heavy on him, in case he was suddenly sick. "Hey, you've got to stay awake until we get to my car, hon. You're too heavy, and I don't want to have to leave you out on the street."

"Creatures are eating the people, except… they aren't people anymore… they're just things… and the sun makes them a funny colour… and the water… they like the water… they're all blown up… like balloons… the special ones… they have at birthday parties and celebrations of supermarket or hardware store openings… so they can float in the water… and the creatures run over them… like paving stones… and the things sway about in the water, and knock into other things… and it's so bright, it's daytime, but nobody closes their eyes… and some of them don't have eyes… and there's-"

Patience plastered a hand over his mouth, feeling sick. They'd reached her car, and she'd leant him up against the car, and was now standing very close to him, with her hand over his mouth, just wishing he'd shut up. She didn't know what particular form of mental illness he suffered from, but there was no use to come from his sharing that suffering. "That's enough, Bobby," she told him. "There are no bodies in the water, there is no water; I'm going home now, and, if you'll be quiet, I'll take you home with me. Can you do that for me, can you be quiet?"

Bobby gazed at her with wide eyes that didn't seem to see her, then he nodded slowly.

Patience stepped away from him, and opened the door and put him in the car, then walked around to the other side. By the time she'd gotten in the car and buckled herself in, he'd fallen asleep, and she unclipped her seatbelt to put his belt on, and put her belt back on and started the car.

The engine was much too quiet to startle him, and Patience relaxed a little.

In the morning, she'd have to ring someone, mental health services, or whatever it was they were called; the boy needed help.

She wondered if his parents were out of town, or if he'd run away from home and come to Maryland alone, and if he had a job that helped him pay for his school fees.

* * *

Chris was there when she pulled up in the drive in front of the house, standing by her window suddenly, and her heart leapt dolphin-like in her chest, her blood racing all of a sudden.

"What the blazes is going on with you?" Chris demanded, when she pressed the button to wind the automatic window down on her side. "It's nearly eleven, for Christ's sake!" Then his eyes spied Bobby, asleep on the other side of the car. "NO! NO WAY!"

Patience made a face quickly, cross, but also hoping he'd keep his voice down. "We didn't do _anything_!" she hissed hotly. "He's a school friend of Bruno's; he wasn't feeling himself, so I offered to take him home – to _his_ home – but he couldn't remember where that was. He's sleeping now; I think we should leave him in the car."

Chris laughed. "Oh, no, we're not! I'm not leaving that in the car I paid for! To have it stolen, come morning – I think not!"

"He's not dangerous!" Patience told her husband, an angered edge to her voice.

"Not dangerous you say, until the knife's twisting in your back!"

"He's confused!"

"Get him out of here before I call the police! I don't care where, dump him on the side of the road for all I care! Just get him off our property!" Chris' eyes glinted darkly. "I promise you, Patience, I will do it! I'll call the police right now, if that's what you want!"

"I can't do that," Patience told him rationally. "He said Tashi had been taken."

"Of course he'd say that," Chris exploded, "he was looking for a sympathetic shag!"

Patience looked stunned, and disgusted, but only for a moment. She rearranged her features into a more collected expression. "I'd hardly think so, I'm not exactly his age anymore."

"But you've got money!" Chris shouted in earnest. "Do you honestly think he cares less – as long as he can steal enough money from you once you're done to score the next hit!"

"He's not into drugs, Chris."

"What the fuck would you know?" Chris yelled, blood running to his face and rapidly colouring it red. "Jesus, Patience, I really don't know you anymore, do I? It's like you're a stranger; I've no idea why I've stayed married to you all these years, all we've done is drift further and further apart – I can't take this anymore!"

Patience couldn't think of anything to say to that, so she only stared. She didn't open the car door and get out, she didn't climb to her feet, she didn't tear away from him, or raise a hand to slap him across the face; she couldn't. It wasn't real; the flowers hadn't been real, he'd still felt the same way he had when he'd yelled at her over the phone, he had all along, and he still did, only, it'd come to the surface again. She'd thought they were getting better, and now it was worse; much worse than she'd ever thought it was, she hadn't wanted to think it was so bad, so she hadn't.

"My God," Chris gasped, "what if it was one of them? One of your boyfriends who harmed our baby girl?" Revulsion worked through his face, making the muscles in his face twitch irregularly. "My dear God!"

"Don't yell at her," a calm, but quiet voice spoke, and Patience realised that all of their shouting had woken Bobby.

"You stay the Hell out of this!" Chris growled loudly.

"I know who you are," Bobby told him.

Chris' eyes flashed, and he started around the car swiftly.

Patience pushed open her door and raced around the car after her husband, then, too late, realised that she should have stayed in the car and hit central locking to lock it down.

"What did you say?" Chris demanded. "What did you _say_!"

"I think you heard me rightly the first time," Bobby told him.

Chris had wrenched open the car door fiercely, but Bobby didn't look troubled, just tired. "Get the fuck out of my wife's car, you little fucker!" Chris raged, grabbing for a handful of Bobby's hair and yanking him out of the car.

"Oh my God! Stop it!" Patience howled. "Stop fighting!"

"It's okay, Mrs. Cox," Bobby told her. "We're not fighting." He redirected his gaze on to Chris' face. "I don't want to hurt you."

Chris slapped him across the face.

"That's enough!" Patience yelled, at a loss for what to do, but so frightened. She didn't want her husband hurt, but she didn't want him to hurt Bobby either, and, somewhere inside, she was afraid that he might hurt her, too, and that frightened and angered her so much at the same time.

Upstairs, the lights were all out; the window to Bruno's bedroom was dark.

Patience slouched uselessly. "Please stop!"

Chris threw Bobby away from him, shouting at him, "You stay away from my family, do you hear me, you little prick!"

Bobby stumbled backward, but didn't fall. He started rambling, "There are no families… spirits are not related… the concept of family does not exist in the spirit world, only the body has relatives… others its genetic make up is derived from… instructions are believed to come from… those to whom it shares closer resemblance in its genetics than others…"

Chris walked over to his wife's car and opened the door. He bent over for a moment, and, slamming the door, Patience saw that he was holding the steering column lock which she kept on the floor under the seat on the passenger's front side, which, though redundant, was kept as more of a good luck charm than anything else.

"Chris, no!"

"Keep out of this, Patience!" Chris growled to her. "He's fixing for it!"

Bobby stared dead at him.

Chris began toward him in a steady walk. "Last chance, fella!" He raised the steering column lock.

"CHRIS!"

"You could've ended it; it's always been within your power, but you never did; you never even thought about it," Bobby said.

Chris charged forward and swung the steering column lock with as much force as he could muster.

Patience couldn't watch that, so she ran to her car. She wasn't going to stay for this, and if Chris thought she was, then he had a big surprise coming. If he'd rather believe her capable of taking lovers on the side, of covering up the sexual abuse of her daughter by her son, or of denying knowledge that it had been going on, then he can't have thought much of her abilities as a mother, he can't have thought much of the way she raised Bruno; if his floozy could do better, then she'd like to see her try; if he could do better alone, when his girlfriend dropped him, then she'd like to see it.

She knew, were she to ask for a divorce, and the decision of in whose custody Bruno would remain, that he'd not only be able to hire a flashier lawyer, but that it'd ruin Bruno in the process. She's rather Bruno believe she'd abandoned him, then have his life ripped to pieces by a court case.

She just couldn't stay with Chris any longer, and he couldn't stay with her; that much was clear. They'd bring each other down, and their son down with them.

She knew what she had to do.

She turned the key in the ignition and put the car into gear, and switched on the high beam.

She'd get Bobby the help he needed, then she'd sort out what she really needed. As much as she thought she needed – and loved – Chris, he didn't need her, and she didn't need someone who didn't need her.

She didn't have to tell Bobby to get in the car, and she hit the accelerator, and sped away from her house, away from her husband and son, and away from her old life.

There was no going back now.

* * *

"I need honesty from you, now, Bobby," she told him sharply, and took her eyes momentarily from the road to fix him with a hard stare. "Where do your parents live?"

"I ran away," Bobby told the windshield. "I don't want to go back."

Her eyes were back on the road. They'd reached the middle of town, and she sighed. "Are you in school?"

Bobby frowned, as though, to him, the answer to that should have been obvious. "No."

"Do you have any objections to getting out of town for a while?"

"No…"

"Then we head out of town," she told him, and leaned forward to switch on the radio, putting an end to their conversation.

* * *

Twenty miles from town, she pulled onto the side of the road and switched the radio off. She put a Ronan Keating CD on over the stereo, and rested her head on the headrest and closed her eyes, letting the music wash over her. "Do you drive?" she asked, without opening her eyes.

"No."

She stifled a laugh, and refrained from asking if his vocabulary extended beyond the word 'no.' "Why did you really go to Lombard's tonight? Did you know I would be there?"

"Randy doesn't cook well. She'd take Tashi there for dinner," Bobby replied.

Patience placed her hand on the gearstick and opened her eyes. "You understand that you need help?"

Bobby nodded.

Patience took the car back out onto the road.


	3. Chapter 3

She took a motel suite with a double and single bed; she allowed Bobby the double – in case he turned over in his sleep, he wouldn't fall off the bed – and listened, from the other room, to the country music over the bedside radio he'd switched on.

She didn't cry that night, she lay and watched the ceiling, covered in darkness, and later, the sounds of the radio from the other room finally quit annoying her, and her eyes closed.

She dreamt of Chris with his new belle, shopping together in a swanky shopping mall in some big city; then the dream changed, and she stood at the kitchen sink, alone, watching the darkened front yard through the kitchen window, Chris' car absent from the drive.

She heard Bruno's footsteps as he approached her from the door, she felt his arms go around her in a hug, and it wasn't strange that they'd gone around her middle. His hands loosened on her waist, and slipped around to her backside, and she slid her hands out of the soapy water and rested them on the edge of the sink. His hands squeezed her backside as her hands squeezed the edge of the sink, and she awoke to a radio ad.

She sat slowly, in the dark, and padded to the door, where she opened the door and slipped into the room next door. She made her way to the bedside, and switched off the radio.

Despite the radio, Bobby had fallen asleep. She sat down at the edge of the bed. Recalling her unwanted dreams, she lifted her feet up off the floor and rested them on the mattress. A long moment passed, and she shifted closer to Bobby, and lay down. For a time, she only listened to his breathing, uneasy in slumber, and it reminded her off the countless time Bruno had come down with something and had been confined to bed, but she pushed her thoughts from the topic of her son; she really was a bad mother, it was true.

She snuggled up to Bobby, and rested her forehead to his back, feeling as his chest rose and fell as he breathed. At his age, it was an incredible misfortune to be so ill, but more and more kids were going that way, yet the system wasn't willing to provide the support services they needed; she only hoped they'd be able to help Bobby.

She'd failed JR as much as they system had, and she couldn't bear to think that she'd make the same mistake again; she had to believe that she was doing the right thing by not returning Bobby to his parents.

Bobby's shirt smelled like washing powder, though she didn't know the brand, and insect spray. She smiled and trailed her hands down his back. She came to the shirt's hem, and felt the stiches beneath her fingertips for long seconds, smiling again. Her smile disappeared as she slipped her hands under the hem, and placed them, palms flat, onto his skin. His skin felt hot, and she pushed her hands up along his back, calming her unsteady hands.

She took her hands back in fear, when she felt Bobby shift, and rolled over on to her back, gazing up at the ceiling, waiting for the angry words she knew would be coming.

She felt as Bobby turned over, to face her, but she didn't take her eyes from the ceiling; she'd have to apologise now, she knew, but he didn't know her dreams, he didn't know the way they terrified her, when she woke, and how they thrilled her, when she slept.

She felt Bobby move again, then, with an electric shock, she felt him settle on top of her. She kept her eyes on the ceiling, terrified because she wasn't scared, because she was excited.

"You can't sleep either?" It was a question, but that wasn't really how Bobby had said it.

Patience didn't look at him; she couldn't look at him, she was envisioning his long, dark eyelashes; how she'd have killed for such eyelashes as a girl. "I suppose not," she replied.

Bobby lowered his head, and Patience lifted her hands to pull his lips to hers.

* * *

A smile curved Patience's lips as Bobby intertwined his fingers with hers, their breathing uneven, as the minutes ticked away unnoticed. The soft pounding of her heart had given away to a steady hammering, jarring her ribcage with its forcefulness, and, to Patience, the beating of their hearts, the sound of two bodies breathing, two lives, connected, was music as sweet as that played by piano or harp.

Her back, which had been cold as she'd lain on the bed beside Bobby, with no blanket to cover her, was now pleasantly aflame; she giggled with breathless abandon when Bobby kissed her cheeks, and fiddled with his hair, as she gasped.

Bobby moaned, chest heaving rapidly against her bosom, and rested his forehead to her. She couldn't help a smile, and squeezed his hands in hers. He wasn't doing so bad.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she tightened her hands around his almost painfully. She forgot about tiredness, she forgot about the lateness of the hour, she forgot about reason. Her skin flushed with desire and she gazed into Bobby's eyes through the darkness with glazed eyes. She held fast to his hand and breathed heavily.

Tears welled bright and warm in Bobby's overlarge eyes, and fell like dewdrops onto her burning cheeks, scampering hotly across her cheeks, racing along her neck, to gather glistening in the hollow in her throat, or the heaving space between her small, pointy breasts.

Later, Bobby fell asleep, his head rested upon her shoulder, arms holding her tightly.

Patience stroked his soft hair, her eyes gently closed, and wondered if she'd done the right thing; they'd be saying goodbye tomorrow.

* * *

She woke later than she'd anticipated, and in the light of day, she saw how pale Bobby's shoulders were. The sound of humming greeted her opening eyes, and she recalled the tune of _Autumn Leaves_, close to her ear, Bobby's head rested still on her shoulder.

"Will we forget each other now?" Bobby asked gently, and Patience felt her eyes sting with strange tears.

To be so torn over someone she'd known for less than a day confounded her, and pained her, so she asked the question she should have asked the day they'd met. "How old are you, honey?" The term of endearment endeavoured to stick in her throat, but she forced it out, as ridiculous as it seemed now, spoken just as it had been so many times before, but no longer holding the same meaning.

"Seventeen, madam," Bobby replied plainly.

The tears she'd been fighting freed themselves from her eyes and rushed to moisten her cheeks. She choked, and commanded her throat into working by sheer force of will, "Oh, Bobby, you make me despise you so, lovely."

Bobby buried his face in her neck. "Forgive me, before we part?" he whispered.

Patience's lips trembled. "I shan't," she promised, defiance bold in her lowered voice, "for as long as I live."

Bobby giggled, and tears tumbled from her eyes stronger.

"Why do you do this to me?" Patience sobbed, in spite of herself. Oh, how pathetic she must seem to him now; how desperate!

"I shall think of you seldom, but with fondness."

Patience smacked his shoulder lightly, blinking back tears. "Stay!" she cried, her voice hysterical and strangled.

Bobby smiled against her neck. "Where would I go?" His breath warmed her skin as he spoke, and she trembled.

She threw her arms about him, and held him tightly. "We shall be enemies," she told him certainly. "You are a despicable rascal." She allowed her eyes to flutter closed, and tasted salt in her mouth.

* * *

Patience frowned in annoyance as Bobby reminded her, as they passed another speed sign, of the speed restriction.

Bobby smiled at her happily, and returned his attention to the front.

She didn't smile, but it was an effort.

* * *

They pulled into a roadhouse for lunch, and Bobby choked on the coffee. Patience laughed, and patted his hand, but he refused to drink anymore, so Patience had two coffees to drink.

"You have beautiful hair," she told him as he frowned concertedly at the menu card.

"You too," Bobby replied, his concentration on the menu card.

Patience felt her heart soften. There was something wrong with her, there had to be! She shook the thought, but it bounced back. Had it ever been this way with Chris? She felt a stab in her chest, and immediately banished the thought of her husband. Oh, ho could she think of him at a time like this? When she'd resolved to be done with him?

"Does this say 'apple'?" Bobby asked uncertainly, looking up at her and turning the menu card toward her and passing it across to her.

Patience scooted forward in her chair.

Bobby pointed to the word he'd been trying to read.

"'Apple,' yes." Patience fought to keep a frown from her face; she lost. "You don't read."

Bobby shook his head, and frowned. "It's… difficult," he admitted, only with honesty.

Patience's chest hurt; in a blinding burst of clarity, the age difference between them came crashing down on her.

"I'm sorry," Bobby said, as though he knew he'd disappointed her.

Patience shook her head, but her throat had blocked up; she couldn't speak, but maybe that was for the better.

"What is the other word?" Bobby asked, gazing into her face.

"'Pie.'"

Bobby smiled radiantly, and his whole demeanour changed. "Can we have it, please?"

"For lunch?" Patience asked sceptically.

Bobby's smile remained.

Patience decided then to test something. "If you finish all your lunch, then we'll see. But you must choose something of substance. If you're still able to eat it then, you may have it, as a treat."

Bobby smiled out the window, then glanced at her quickly. "Thank you, Patience," he said, careful not to overdone his excitement.

Patience felt suddenly sick. If he'd not just said that as though she was one of his mother's friends, or a school teacher, then maybe she'd have been fine.

"I will have the special," Bobby told her happily.

Patience slid her gaze toward the menu, mounted on the wall behind the service counter. There were three specials listed on the board in pink chalk. "Which one?" she asked, glancing back to Bobby.

Bobby turned to look at the spot she'd just looked at, then returned his gaze to her face. "The first one."

"Are you sure?" she asked, remembering that he'd said that reading was difficult for him. "There's ham steak with salad and chips; tomato, leek and bacon soup with a buttered bread roll, and steak sandwich with pineapple and chips. Do you want the ham steak?"

"Yes, thank you."

Patience fought a wince, and nodded and stood. "I think I'll have the same," she said.

Bobby stood to join her, but Patience nodded to the table.

"No, you say here," she told him, then, fearing she'd been too stern, added, "I want my coffee to be here when I return." She flashed an amused smile before turning away.

Bobby smiled back at her.

As she walked away from their table, toward the counter, she wondered if he only smiled because she did.

* * *

After the ham steak, she declined apple pie, and sipped Bobby's cold coffee, watching Bobby eating his slice of apple pie.

When the waitress came to collect Patience's plate, he smiled and told her that Patience hadn't finished her lunch, and, once the waitress had left, Patience explained that she wasn't that hungry anymore, and that she'd just leave the chips; she'd eaten most of them, it was just a couple of chips.

Bobby finished his apple pie and ate the last of her chips too.

Patience laughed, hoping he didn't make himself sick later.

* * *

Bobby stood beside her, watching the counter as she filled the car's fuel tank, and, when she'd replaced the nozzle at the bowser, he turned to her seriously and reported how much she'd put into the tank, and the price she'd be paying.

She headed back toward the roadhouse, the sun hot against her clothes as she crossed cracked concrete, stained with oil, fuel and old gum.

* * *

She'd just hit the highway, when Bobby plastered his hands over his ears and screamed.

Patience hit the indicators and pulled off the road at the earliest practical opportunity, her face pale and worried. She reached for Bobby's hand. "What's the matter?" She noticed how her voice had gone higher with panic. She squeezed Bobby's hand tightly in hers.

Bobby stared at her. "We need to go the other way," he said in agitation. "They took her that way. We have to help Tashi."

* * *

A long moment later, she switched on the indicator. She suddenly felt unsure, then, as though she'd made a horrible mistake, but one that she could not back down from now, she'd come too far already; she checked the side mirror, and prayed that it would all be okay, that she'd made the right decision.

All her life, she'd always had everything perfectly planned, she'd had every aspect of her life and her family's life within her control, until Ursula had disappeared. Then, everything had seemed to go back to normal, despite the public search and outcry over Ursula's disappearance, the accusal and recriminations, the years had flown by, and she'd come to accept that her daughter wasn't coming home, that she'd estranged her elder son too badly, and that her once family of four had become just a family of three, until now. Now, everything was different, everything had changed.

Her life had spun out of control, and it'd happened too fast for her to grab hold and stop it.

* * *

When Bruno got home after school, after ducking by the supermarket to buy some things – well, a cabbage mainly – he found the house locked up, and no sign of his mom's car. He sat in the front yard, under one of the large trees, alternating between reading his math textbook, and playing Tetris on his cell phone, until his dad came home.

"Where's mom?" he asked his dad, approaching his parked car with his schoolbag in one hand, and his shopping bag in the other.

Chris, far from startled, turned to face him just slightly slower than usual, and dropped his eyes to his son's face. "I've been to the station to report her," he told Bruno, "but I'm sure she's fine."

"Report her for what?" Bruno asked, putting his schoolbag down on the ground.

"To report her missing, Bruno," Chris explained gently. "She didn't come home last night."

Bruno shook his head. His mom couldn't be missing!

"I'm sure she's fine," Chris told him, "and I'll not have one of us thinking otherwise, and bringing ill wishes to her, wherever she is."

Bruno's eyes blossomed with tears, and he wondered if his mom had run away because of him, because he'd been such a pain growing up, and, now, because he had a girlfriend. He could never give Darol up, but he couldn't give his mom up either; he loved them both so much.

He dropped the shopping bag he was still holding onto, and it fell heavily on the white pebbles, crunching as it rolled a little way. He rushed over to his dad, and hugged him tightly. He was so sad; he wasn't going to think ill things about his mom, he never was, like he'd never thought ill things about Ursula, even though everyone else did.

His father hugged him back, for a while. "What's that you've bought?" he asked, his arms loosening on his son.

Bruno stepped back from him, and his eyes moved to the cabbage. "A cabbage," he said.

Chris frowned. "I've never been a big follower of cabbage; I can't stand sauerkraut."

Bruno shook his head; he didn't know what that was. "Sour what?"

"Germans eat a lot of it, I hear," Chris replied.

"You don't like Germans?"

Chris smiled. "Who does?"

Bruno frowned. "I don't mind them," he responded, then shrugged. "I don't think I've known any personally, so it's not my place to hold vendettas of the past against them, and, even if I did, and didn't like one or two of… their people, then it's not like that's really justification for hating them all."

"Are you forgetting something?" his father asked, amused, then, more seriously. "World War One; World War Two?"

"We all have wars; they're not even the same people, I mean, some of them might be, the old ones, but maybe they've changed, or maybe they haven't, but we've had loads of wars, and we always still have them again, even though we know people die because of them, and afterwards, loads of people still suffer because of what happened. We never stop."

"They haven't changed, and we don't start wars; the wars we have aren't for the same reasons!" Chris debated.

"There are people on… our side… who go to war because they hate the people on the other side, even though they've never met them… or they've never been hurt by them… they just don't like them… What's the difference?"

"There is a big difference, Bruno," Chris told him. "I think this is getting out of hand; why don't you tell me why you've bought a cabbage?"

Bruno frowned, then shook his head. "I just thought we could try it for once. I thought I'd look in one of mom's cookbooks with… by my self, and see what has cabbage in it, and maybe make that for dinner."

"I thought we'd order in tonight," Chris replied.

"We order in last night, dad," Bruno complained. "I don't want takeout again!" And it would remind him of his mom, who'd gone missing.

"Well, that's what we're doing," Chris told him, and turned back to his car to lock up, then turned and headed toward the house, Bruno trailing behind him, shoulders slumped.

It was funny, Chris thought, that he could never remember having such involved conversations with Patience, even after Ursula's disappearance, until last week. He'd really had an off week, and now Patience had abandoned him for a teenage drug addict, and his son was starting argument with him!

He'd married Patience when he'd been twenty-two and she'd been seventeen – it was an arranged marriage – and he remembered overhearing her telling her cousin, Fay, that she thought an arranged marriage was romantic, that it showed that their parents cared about them, and thought that they'd get along finely, though they'd held no serious conversations growing up, and had perhaps only met in glancing. At the time, he'd been sure he wasn't in love with Patience, but, over time, he'd grown to care for her, and she'd been over the moon for him, so he'd thought he was onto a good thing – she didn't resent him for an arranged marriage, after all – and he convinced himself that he truly could love this woman, despite that it had been a marriage conceived by their families to secure the co-operation and financial backing of the other family.

He'd really been taken with her, in the face of her enthusiasm for them, but, he realised now, he'd never really taken the time to get to know her, and she'd never taken the time to get to know him. They'd been thrown together, and they'd stayed together, only out of duty, and then, a false sense of love and commitment to each other.

It was quite possible, he conceived then, that he'd never really experienced love, and felt, suddenly, horribly wronged, and, what was worse, was that it had been their families who'd done this to them, who'd wronged them this way, so much so, that they could not see past the love they had for their families to the lack of love they had for each other; they'd lived the same lie, day in, day out, since the day of their marriage, and he felt sick.

His son, Bruno, was not a child of the love between Patience and he, but a child that he'd needed, that Patience had needed, the one thing that she'd needed from him, and he'd need from her; not because they were in love, because it was proper, because it was what was done, what was expected. The people of the town may have been convinced that JR and Ursula had been their biological offspring, but Patience and he had known otherwise, and they'd never stopped striving to stop the gap, to mend the break, to have a child of their own flesh and blood; until, one day, they had.

He closed the door after him, and wondered if it was such a terrible thing, Patience's leaving now; perhaps, it was only the start of a new chapter of his life, as hard as it would be for their son.

* * *

That night, Chris ordered in KFC, and he didn't bother to take the dishes from their cupboards, or the cutlery from its drawer; they ate out of the packet, there was less complication then; Bruno went up to his room after dinner, and Chris didn't think he'd be hearing from him again until the morning. Tomorrow, he decided, they'd have pizza; after that, who knew, perhaps KFC again?

Life had become predictable, even with the opening of the new branch, and, he decided, perhaps it was time for him also, to move on, as Patience had done. Perhaps he'd play the grieving husband – because strangely, he felt little grief over Patience's decision, anger, but not grief – for a while, as long as it took, then, move on with another woman, a woman who could be a real mother to Bruno, a part of his life, rather than a boring, reliable old family fixture.

When that happened, it'd only look like he was drowning his sorrows in the comforting arms of a warm-hearted woman, as so many others had done, and what was wrong with that?

* * *

Patience had thought, when Chris had backed her on JR's involvement in Ursula's disappearance, that he'd maybe felt it too, what she'd felt, and maybe, that he'd seen something that he'd thought innocent and innocuous at the time, but that he'd come to question, but now, as the darkness stretched before her, Bobby asleep on her shoulder, she could not help thinking that they hadn't yet stopped for dinner, that perhaps Chris had only supported her because it was what he deemed he should do, that, when she'd been feeling an overwhelming swell of love for him, he'd been worrying about what she would come out with next, what crazy thing she'd say next, and he'd have to agree with.

She mentally shook herself then – Chris would never interfere with a federal investigation that way, he'd never bias the investigation into his own daughter's disappearance like that – but she could not help the lingering feeling that washed over her, that he'd only been doing what he'd been brought up by his mother to believe was right, to support his wife, and if something was wrong, to either accept it, or bash it out of her, but, heck, never, ever to ask her questions, because women lied, they all lied, no matter how seemingly good they were. With a painful jab in her stomach, she remembered the false smiles she'd received from Chris' mother, the false niceties, and wondered, with a sinking feeling, whether, even then, his mother had maintained that she was a liar, that she must have been unable to bear him child because of some affair she'd had with a foreigner, or heathen, and she'd polluted herself in God's eyes, and that her inability to be a mother was merely her punishment; had she advised Chris to move on to another woman, or to take other women when she would not notice, or suspect?

Beside her, suddenly, Bobby sat up, and rubbed his face with a hand, peering with bleary eyes into the windshield. "Where are we going?" he asked, then turned to glance at her for her answer.

"I think we should look into finding a place for dinner, then a place to stop for the night," Patience told him, shooting him a quick glance and smiling at him.

He rubbed his face again, and rested his head on her arm.

"Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed.

* * *

She shook him gently awake, parked almost in front of the café, in front of an old bank – no longer in use as a bank, but now the headquarters of a local genealogy society - beside it, and brushed his hair into some semblance of neatness, frowning at how it had started to wave in places, as though undecided as to what it wanted to do.

She wanted to ask: 'Why did you run away, hmm? What could be so bad?' Or: 'What makes you think Tashi's alive, the experts say she's dead, just like they say, every year, when I ask them about Ursula? "Couldn't there be some small chance? Oh please, God?" How do you know this was where she was taken? Are you doing this to ruin my life? To keep me from my family, because you saw there was a crack, and you knew you could make us break, because you'd felt it before, and you thought it would comfort you to make someone else feel it, to feel what you'd felt? Are you evil? Do you feel better? Do you, you bastard? Answer me!'

But she held her silence.

She locked the car door behind him, and they walked together toward the café's beckoning lights, and she contemplated looping her arm through his, but someone would see, so she didn't, and, when they stepped inside, she felt warm, almost safe.

She knew how to do this, she knew what was next.

* * *

A song she recognised came on over the radio, and she smiled – it was new, but she liked it – glancing across the table at Bobby, but if he'd heard the song before he showed no indication. She made a mental note to ask what sort of music he liked, later.

When he saw that she was smiling, he smiled too.

Patience's smile faltered, struck with an ice storm inside, but she kept it in place, and leaned into the table. "Do you like this song?"

Bobby shook his head slowly. "I haven't heard it before," he said.

Her smile slipped into a frown, and she couldn't help her next question, "How can you be sure this is the way Tashi was taken? How can you be sure that Tashi was taken, at all?" The ice storm grew fiercer, and sharp points of ice stabbed her. Oh God, what if he'd taken Tashi? Could he have done such a thing? Could anyone do such a thing, and then lie about it afterward, and then feign grief and shock afterward?

Bobby shuffled his chair closer to the table, the scraping of chair legs on floor dragging her bodily from her thoughts, and he leaned forward, outstretching a hand and placing an open palm upon her chest, over her heart.

She felt suddenly hot, overheated, and destabilised. She'd been playing mommy, and his hand on her breast wasn't the most credible reassurance of that fact.

"I feel it," Bobby told her genuinely, and the authenticity in his voice made her hate him venomously for one, horrible moment.

She gazed into his large, blue eyes, open hatred pouring from her own darker blue eyes, and time seemed to stop. She placed her hand over his and took it from her chest. "What do you feel, Bobby? If that is your name!"

Bobby closed his eyes, then she felt him rip his hand from hers, and he was on his feet, and he was running toward the door, and she only sat and watched him; she didn't get up to stop him, or offer any consoling words. She _felt _better.

* * *

She'd just sipped her cherry-flavoured coffee and replaced it on the table to eat her chicken schnitzel burger, Bobby's chips and gravy and water sitting across the table in front of the chair he'd been sitting at, when Bobby came back in.

She thought he might sit down again, or say something awful and loud to her, but he only took the container filled sachets of artificial sweetener – decorated with flowers – from the middle of the table and tugged up his check shirt and dropped the sachets onto it, and moved on to the next table, repeating the same ritual.

After a moment, she realised that she could not just ignore him, and stood to confront him. She walked up to him and placed her hand on his arm, stopping him from taking the container from the table he was standing by. "What are you doing, Bobby?" she asked him.

"I have to hide them," Bobby told her, reaching for the container.

Patience yanked on his arm, pulling his hand back from the container. "I want you to put them back!" she said, a stern edge to her voice.

Bobby shook his head, his eyes bright.

Patience fixed him with a steady admonishing glare. "Do you want to upset the people who run this place, because if they see what you're doing, they're going to be upset?"

"They're poisonous!" Bobby tugged his arm from her hand and reached for the container again.

Patience stepped into his path, blocking his line of sight. "Stop this! If you're trying to embarrass me, you've done that; stop now."

Bobby leant to the side, but she stepped into his path again.

A loud squeal had the cashier looking their way; Patience felt herself go red.

"It's hurting people's brains!" Bobby yowled, and his voice became a painful whine, urgent. "I have to hide it! Please step aside!"

"Excuse me, what's going on here?"

Patience turned swiftly to the cashier. "Nothing; we're fine… Ah, my son likes to collect things, and he figured the sweetener's free. I tried to tell him that it wasn't fair to other people to take so many, but he's compulsive, and he gets upset when I-"

The cashier folded her arms tightly. "You'll have to put those back, young-"

"These ones are bad…" Bobby rambled, turning from the table.

The cashier's eyes widened. "Put them back, thank you. There's nothing wrong with them."

Patience glanced at Bobby. "Bobby, please listen to the woman," she appealed.

Bobby started toward the other table. "I only want the bad ones," he muttered. "They're bad, I have to put them away… damage people's brains… they damage people's brains…"

The cashier stepped into his way and raised a hand to slap him; he quickly raised a hand to block her. She screamed and backed away. "I _will_ call the cops!" she yelled, her eyes darting to Patience, then back to Bobby, fearful.

Patience didn't know what to do.

"Somebody call the cops!" the cashier shouted, and Patience felt herself move then, broken from her stupor.

She took Bobby's arm in a firm grip and pulled him after her, causing the sachets to fall to the floor. Closer to the door, she broke into a run.

Bobby was crying, when they reached the car, and he wouldn't look at her, so she ripped open the door and shoved him into the car and slammed the door after him, then ran around to the other side and got in herself; she wasn't about to stick around for the fallout of one of his episodes.

"They were bad…" Bobby muttered, as she sped away from the café, pushing herself to stick to the speed limits – she wanted the Hell out of this town!

"I don't want to hear a word out of you!" she barked angrily, her eyes fixed ahead in a death glare. If he even opened his mouth, she'd toss him out of the car!

He could find his own way home, or wherever the fuck he was going!

She didn't bother telling him to put his seatbelt on.


	4. Chapter 4

She rehearsed, over and over, what she'd say to him; it was always something like: 'You think you can cause me a world of Hell because I was lonely, because I had one moment of weakness? Well, guess what, young man? You're sorely mistaken, let me tell you now!'

When she pulled into a motel parking lot, he was asleep; she'd have to shake him awake to tell him. She decided to book a room for the night first.

She got a room with two single beds, and woke him to get him inside; he almost tripped over his feet at the door and tripped them both. She sat down on the bed after she'd lay him down on it, and thought about how Chris'd be able to find her if she used her credit card; if he cared, he'd have reported her missing for just that purpose.

She stood from the bed she was sitting on, and walked across the room to the other bed. It wasn't so much if he cared for her, but surely he'd have other cares that certainly involved her. Maybe he'd go down to his lawyers, in which case he'd likely want her back to sign the divorce papers.

She lay down, gazing out the window, and wondered if tomorrow she'd use her credit card, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't get to sleep. She just kept thinking about Bruno, missing his mom, and she felt so, so bad.

She turned over, away from the window, and watched Bobby sleeping; he seemed to have no trouble doing that. Of maybe ten minutes of laying awake, watching someone else sleep, she sat up, and when she'd sat up, she found her mind suddenly made up. She'd leave Bobby here, and go off on her own. She'd not be a part of his plans; she'd leave and have nothing to do with him again.

She was hit with the coldness of the night, the moment she stepped outside, and it was only colder still in the car, but she switched on the heater, and put Ronan Keating on the stereo system, and it wasn't so bad after that.

She'd get another motel up the road, when she got tired.

She was free.

* * *

Marcel Renoir dropped his son off for school outside the school gates, before heading off for work; in no time, Lenoi would have his own license, and he'd be driving himself to school; he'd miss the routine when he wasn't needed as part of it any more, Marcel thought.

Lenoi closed the door of his dad's car and walked up to the gate where Aylmer, Don and Aaron were waiting for him to join them, engaged in conversation over the wrestling they'd watched the previous night on television; Lenoi's mom had forbidden him to watch wrestling, though she didn't mind when men made passes on her because it made her feel appreciated as a woman; it was so unfair.

He paused inside the schoolyard to listen to Dan spinning some shit to Bruno Cox. "Man, that's harsh," Dan prattled. "First your sis, then your mom. That's some real sad junk, Bruse." He nodded, keeping eye contact with Bruno all the while. "You know, I mean, if you ever need to, you could talk to the school counsellor."

Bruno dropped his gaze to the ground. "I know," he replied wearily.

Dan clapped a hand to his arm. "That's the way!" he chimed, bounding away moments later.

Lenoi glanced at his friends, then turned and walked toward Bruno. "I'm sorry about the other day, Cox. That's too bad about your mom; stuff like that just isn't right, you know."

Bruno's chin shot up from the ground swiftly, eyes hard with determination fixed to Lenoi's face. "She's fine!"

"And I'm sure she is, friend," Lenoi agreed. Bruno said no more to him after that, so, after some moments, he turned and wandered away, over to his friends.

* * *

Bobby woke up lying under the bed, and wondered if it was because he'd had a bad dream, or just because he liked the floor better compared to the bed, and stood up and sat down on the end of the bed for a long time; Patience had left, even the car was gone.

After a couple of minutes, he stood up and walked into the other room and sat on the floor by the wall, watching the television, the remote control in his hand.

He wondered if he'd had a bad dream about Tashi, or if he'd been scared or sad because Patience hadn't stayed, or maybe it'd just been a normal bad dream, the sort which people got sometimes, or when they felt stressed, or upset, or when things changed.

An ad came on the television, a supermarket advertisement, and he wondered if the people who'd taken Tashi were feeding her.

* * *

The girl's name was Kimono; she'd been eighteen, studying engineering and electronics. Her full name was Rainbow Kimono Austin; she'd been born in Scotland, but she'd travelled back to Japan with her mother when her parents had divorced when she'd been eleven; then, when she'd turned sixteen, her mother had moved to the USA with her sister, who was a surgeon. Her father was Scottish, and her mother half-Japanese, half-English.

She had a younger sister, sixteen-year-old London Tomi, and brother, 15-year-old Michio Summit Wilfred who went by Nello, both still in high school.

Bobby rocked back and forth against the wall, wide-eyed, as he watched a man in a suit talking with a woman in a dark skirt and a blouse patterned in metallic confetti of dark blue, purple and maroon, and silver and black.

He couldn't see on the television screen, so he wondered what kind of shoes the woman was wearing. She could have been wearing black shoes to go with her skirt, or colourful shoes to go with her top.

He wondered why Michio called himself Nello, when none of his names began with an 'n,' or maybe it was a nickname his family or friends had made up.

A woman in a dress decorated with a pattern of electrical cables and computers came on after the man in the suit; she'd been the one who'd explained about Kimono's background. She had a blue clip in her hair, which went with the thin blue belt she wore with her dress, and with her eyes, but not with the dress she'd picked. A by-line at the bottom of the television told the viewers that her name was Shannen Cleary, for _True Crimes_.

Bobby made a face. It wouldn't really be on the news if it wasn't real, would it?

He wondered if Tashi would be on the television, but that had been a while ago, so maybe she wouldn't, and he didn't know if the photographs of all missing people were put on the television anyway; in any case, he was sure it was just missing people who lived in the United States; unless they were celebrities, like movie stars, or if they'd gone missing in a accident that had happened with a plane or a bus, or a boat, and some of the people who'd gone missing with them were from the United States.

He hadn't watched much television in the past, so he wouldn't really know, though he remembered it being talked about at school when there'd been an accident and people had gone missing.

From the television screen, Shannen told the viewers that Kimono was only one in a long line of young Asian women who'd been murdered in the same way, and that the case was being handed over to the FBI for further investigation.

Bobby smiled. "For further instigation," he said, at the same time as Shannen. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, but when he looked back to the television, Shannen had gone and a man was talking again, telling the viewers about the results of a sporting event.

* * *

It was cold outside in the morning, but he needed to find Tashi, so it was okay. It'd be warm where Tashi was, because they didn't want her to get sick because then she could die, and they didn't want her to die.

He should have had something to eat, but he didn't have any money, so he just kinda forgot about the food thing and kept walking.

He stopped at a service station a few miles away, and went to the bathroom. Someone had written on the wall, but he couldn't read what they'd written so it didn't really matter. There were a couple of numbers that looked like a telephone number, so he read over them a few times until he'd committed them to memory. If he ever got some money, he'd know a number to ring; he didn't really know his home number.

He washed his hands at the sink and stared into the mirror at the new spot on his face. It was probably from the sunlight, he supposed.

After he'd washed his hands, he had some water, and smiled at the automatic hand drier on the wall. There were numbers on it too – manufacture and service numbers – so he put the numbers away in his memory with the other numbers, and turned to the door.

A girl stood in front of the door, staring at him. She looked like the girl from the television, so he thought that maybe she was dead, because the other girl had been, and maybe they were the same girl.

"_Is your name Kimono?_" he asked her in Japanese.

"Help me!" she wailed. "It hurts!"

He hurried over to her and took her hand. It was covered in blood, for a moment, then the blood went away, except Bobby's hand still had blood on it.

Kimono frowned. "You're young," she said.

"Does it still hurt?" Bobby asked, looking carefully into her face.

"The other girl said I'm dead; I thought she was lying."

"Your picture was on the television," Bobby told her.

Kimono dropped her head. "Where do I go now?"

Bobby frowned.

"Can I stay with you for a bit?" Kimono asked, then looked around her, as though only just noticing her surroundings. "Is this a bathroom? Is it for boys only?"

Bobby shook his head. "There's only one."

Kimono sighed, as though relieved that she'd not strayed into anywhere she was not supposed to go by accident. "Where are we?" she asked after a moment.

"Mary's land," Bobby replied.

"Maryland," Kimono corrected.

Bobby frowned.

"Well, can I come with you then or not?" Kimono asked.

Bobby looked away from her and turned to glance at the sink, then slowly looked back to her face. "If you want, I guess," he said, and turned and walked back to the sink to wash his hands again.

"Have you seen a heap of dead people before?" Kimono asked conversationally, walking over to the sink and stopping beside him. She gave a little shriek, and pointed to the mirror suddenly. "I'm a vampire!"

Bobby looked up at her, wide-eyed, then looked to the mirror where she wasn't reflected. He stepped past her and walked to the door, and she swung around to follow him.

"Do you have a car?" she asked.

"I'm epileptic," Bobby said.

Kimono's eyes turned large. "You're what?"

"I'm not allowed to drive, I have seizures."

Kimono huffed. "That sucks! So why are you… like, why do you have seizures?"

"The Western medical profession says that it's because of a malfunction in the brain," Bobby told her.

"Wow, do they carry guns and wear spurs on their boots?"

Bobby frowned, looking to either side of the road before they crossed.

"It's a joke, funny boy!" Kimono shouted.

Bobby took a deep breath and walked across the road.

Kimono skipped after him. "Where are we going, funny boy?" When Bobby didn't reply, she ran ahead and stood in his way, jogging backward. "Hey, I'm talking to you! Who else would I talk to? You're the only living person who's been able to see me so far!"

"I didn't ask for a friend," Bobby told the ground in a low voice. "My friends die."

"Which, is like, why I'm the perfect candidate!" Kimono chirped in a bright voice. "I'm already dead!"

"What makes you think spirits can't die?" Bobby asked her, looking up into her face.

Kimono stopped dead, and Bobby sidestepped her and continued walking. She spun about and stared after him. "No! Come on! You're having me on, right?" She flapped her arms and ran after him, catching up to him and peering sideways at him. "Right, funny boy?"

"If you're an energy, you can be absorbed into other energies, can't you?"

Kimono shivered. "I'm an energy?"

Bobby watched the road, not looking at her.

She grabbed his arm. "You're a funny boy!" she said, and laughed loudly.

* * *

"Did you ever smoke weed?" Kimono asked suddenly, her eyes on the sky. "My brother does. His name's Nello… well, that's what he calls himself anyway… I call him Nillo." She laughed, and frowned at a piece of sky, squinting her eyes. "It's really boring out here," she said, "I think I'm starting to get sunstroke, you know, from all of the solar energy. Can that happen?" She glanced at Bobby. "Are you getting sunstroke too?" Her eyes darted to the road and she shrieked, tearing away from Bobby. "A car, funny boy!" she hollered. "A car! Car! Car! Car!" She jumped up and down hysterically. "Wave, funny boy!" she yelled.

Bobby kept walking.

But the car pulled over by itself.

"You can sit in the back," the old woman told Bobby, pulling up beside him, and Kimono's eyes widened.

"Oh, shit!" she mouthed. "What if she's some kind of freak? No way! No way! I've heard about this sort of thing! Tell her 'no way'!"

"You'll only speak to give directions," the woman went on.

Kimono slouched. "What, are you going with her?" she demanded.

Bobby nodded.

The woman leant across to unlock the car's doors using central locking.

Kimono appeared in the car beside Bobby. "Hey, nice car!" she told him. "I dare you to heist it when the old lady stops for gas! I'll teach you how to drive; she has to go!"

Bobby rested his head against the car window, and the woman switched the stereo on.

Kimono shuffled over and leant her head on Bobby's arm. "I won't let her do anything bad to you, I promise."

* * *

Patience turned the stereo up, and cranked the air conditioning up; she began to feel more and more as though she'd made the wrong decision in coming back to pick Bobby up.

The air con kicked in and she felt marginally better than before.


	5. Chapter 5

Kimono shook her head in time with the music playing loudly over the speakers, black hair smattering her pale face at regular intervals. It wasn't that bad, considering the old woman liked it.

Bobby rested his head against the glass window and watched the passing scenery, thinking of Tashi.

The car's digital clock ticked over to noon; the hour came and went. Ahead, a roadhouse loomed, off to the side of the road, and the car slowed.

Kimono jiggled her foot; the boy had fallen asleep, she supposed. She began to hum along to the song, hoping to wake him. She still hadn't asked his name, she realised. It would be the next agenda on her list, she decided.

* * *

Patience parked the car in the parking lot reserved for customers of the roadhouse's diner, perhaps hinting that she was intending on taking lunch there. Out of the car, she locked up and threw Bobby a quick, vague, "I'm going to the bathroom."

Kimono kicked a bit of ground, which succeeded in doing nothing, and turned to glance back at Bobby, only to find him gone. She looked around her rapidly, and spotted him walking toward the road. "What's up?" she asked, appearing beside him and nearly leaping after him to keep up with him. She only had short legs.

A couple of seconds later, she spied what had drawn Bobby's attention, and wrinkled up her nose. A dead snake. She stepped onto the road cautiously, then with less worry, remembering that she was dead. Cars would just go right through her, right?

Seeing that Bobby had knelt down to look at it, she skipped over and forced herself to look at it. _Icky thing!_ "Oh, I think it's been run over," she explained, cavalier, and couldn't restrain a flinch when he reached out a hand to touch it. "Let's take it off the road, good point," she chimed. What did he want with the slimy, dead thing anyway? It was probably a boy thing, she decided. "If anything wants to eat it, it'll come onto the road and get hit, too." She shifted her weight between her feet nervously and looked around her. Just looking at it made her feel yucky. "Go! Go!" she told him quickly, "I'll look for cars." It didn't look like there were any cars on road; she squinted to make out the horizon. "Clear!" she chirped. "Go, go!"

Once he'd moved the snake to the side of the road, Bobby sat down to pat it.

Kimono made a face. "Can we not stick around? Like, you don't want to get sunburn; it's really starting to heat up out here…" Well, she didn't know for sure. "I bet!" she added quickly.

* * *

"How come you speak Japanese anyway?" Kimono asked, sitting on a discarded chair, half facing toward another table, and watching him sip his green crushed ice thing the machine had said was called a slushie. "Do you wanna hear my Scottish accent – it's _sooo_ funny!"

Bobby was minding the table; Patience looking through the newspapers on display for sale.

"_Patience is helping me_," Bobby told her in Japanese.

That was the old woman's name! "Helping you with what? Wait, you've met before?" There was something up with his Japanese; annoyingly, she didn't know what yet.

"_I have to find Tashi_," Bobby said to the tabletop, still in Japanese.

Bingo! Kimono frowned. _How strange!_ "You don't have an American accent! That's strange! Who's Tashi?"

"_She's twelve. I need to find her._"

"Where has she gone?"

"_Over the border, I think…"_ he finished in Japanese. He frowned at the table.

Kimono didn't know if Patience would like what Bobby had to tell her so much. "Hey, tell me your name, you know mine, and I so know it isn't Edgar, so if you even try-" It was meant to be a joke, but maybe the boy didn't get jokes; he didn't smile.

"Bobby."

"So we find Tash together, Bobby," Kimono told him, forgetting her joke. It hadn't been that great, anyway. She thought about telling him that drinks made out of crushed ice, sugar syrup, and a bit of artificial colouring and flavouring probably didn't have the best nutritional value, but it sounded pretty stupid to her, so she kept it inside. "How do you know this stuff?" she asked instead, asking the obvious question and hoping she didn't scare him off. But she had good reason getting down to business, right? "I mean, the stuff about Tash? Are you… like… do you know what happened to me?" She refrained from using the word 'telepathic.' She didn't know how much he knew about his powers and didn't want to spook him. "I died, right, but do you know how?"

"_Tashi's alive_," Bobby told her. "_The woman on the television said you were dead._"

Kimono narrowed her eyes at him a bit. "So you only do living things? Why? Is it bad? Dead stuff, I mean?"

Bobby's frown might have been an objection at her phrasing, or annoyance at her idiocy.

Awkward, she rushed on, hating the words that were just gushing out of her mouth, but unable to stop them. She had to say something. "Cos… the other guy said something different… well, you know about the girl," she nodded, "I told you about the girl, but she had this friend, right," another nod, "and he was, you know, one of the living," nod, "and he said he could help me… and the girl, she seemed really into it, but I didn't trust them, so I kinda ditched… I mean, it was really nice and all, them helping me to know that I was _dead_," she rolled her eyes, "but all that shit just freaked me out, you know?" She shrugged, feeling anything but calm; she wanted to laugh. She was unsteady; she was dead. "No sweat, I got the Efron out of there!"

Bobby looked up from the table at her. "_On the television set, the woman said that there had been others…_"

Kimono tried to make sense of this. Right, like the girl had probably been one of them, so not his spirit guide, after all. But if it was dangerous, if he could hurt himself, then the girl shouldn't have been encouraging him. "That guy is so dead meat when I catch up to him!" she hissed. "You know what, let's focus on Tash. He's, like, an adult, and I'm talking forty and going, so it's, like, his business, not ours."

Bobby's eyes were focussed on something outside the diner, through one of the large, dirty awning-clad windows, any colour or liveliness it had had long ago leached from sun exposure; mucky from dust and dirt from the tyres of passing vehicles, windstorms. "_You should go to him._"

Kimono didn't respond at once, she'd been thinking about what he could be looking at _out there_, thinking that maybe it was the snake, then she kind of finished processing what he'd said. She shook her head sharply. "I'm not leaving you!" she told him abruptly, a lump rising in her throat. It was stupid, she knew, but he was her friend. And she was going to help him get Tashi back! She had to stay with him; he didn't have any other friends.

London would say she was crushing on him, but, like, what would London know? She was _alive_! They were just friends, and she wanted him help him do this thing he wanted to do.

She kicked the table leg and refused to look at him. No way was she going anywhere!

* * *

Patience and Bobby had had lunch, then they'd gotten back on the road for a while, before coming to a town of reasonable size; they'd even had an Avenue of Honour for those who'd fought and died in war overseas.

A sign at the shopping mall told users of the parking lot that any damage to or theft of vehicles was solely the user's responsibility; parking was at the user's risk, 100%.

Patience had some choice words for that sign, in her mind.

Inside the mall, it was comfortably cooler than outside; the sun had really gotten up outside.

Patience looked at various stores as she walked, eyed a nice piece of jewellery in a store window – Chris'd never get her anything like that.

She stopped to regard a sign announcing operating hours, and taking Bobby's arm, steered him into a department store. "Find something in your size," she told him, "I'm tired of getting around with…" she shook her head, "a hippie."

"I don't think you look like a hippie," Kimono commented, looking around the store and nodding in the direction that she thought would be the fastest to where they wanted to go.

-

"I reckon maybe this one," Kimono told him, fiddling with a sleeve of the long-sleeved tee shirt. "You should get jeans to go with it, it's what boys usually wear."

Bobby frowned and turned to look at the shirts.

Kimono took his arm, stopping him from leaving. "Try it on?" she asked. "You can try the other stuff on later."

Bobby looked at the tee shirts again, and stepped toward the rack slowly.

Kimono smiled.

* * *

"Now?"

"No."

He had a cute accent when he spoke in English, she decided. "Now?"

A sigh. "Yes."

No 'I suppose'? Kimono snapped her eyes open, dropping her hands back to her sides. "Ooh, it fits!" she cried, bouncing on the spot excitedly; the carpet was really squishy. Tee shirt, jeans… "The jeans look realllly good!" She looked up at his face quickly, avoiding opening her mouth and telling him how her brother always wore his jeans way too baggy, and how it looked so dorky, and how – _eww!_ – she so didn't want to see his boxers, and probably no one else did, either.

Bobby frowned and shuffled closer to the mirror.

Kimono told herself that she wasn't checking his bum out – she _so _wasn't – and peeked into the mirror, coming up to stand beside Bobby. "It looks great!" she told him enthusiastically, untroubled by his uncomfortable expression.

Bobby widened his eyes. "It looks silly," he said honestly, uncomfortableness in his voice.

Kimono shook her head frantically, hair slapping her face. "No it doesn't!"

Bobby swayed and started to lean toward the mirror.

Kimono's eyes got big and she got in front of him to stop him from smacking his head on the glass, scared. Her voice had risen in pitch, but she didn't notice. "Funny boy? Funny boy? Are you okay?" She lifted up hands to touch his arms; he was heavy.

He stepped away from her quickly.

"Are you okay?"

Bobby looked up into her face. "Yes," he said slowly, nodding after a long moment, the action somewhat disjointed with his response.

Kimono touched his arm and unplastered herself from the mirror, feeling a bit stupid, but knowing her concerns had been valid. "What do you think?" she asked, to change the topic, wondering if he was embarrassed. "Will you get it?"

"D-" Kimono smiled a little; he was going to ask her what she thought. "Yes."

Her smile twitched and disappeared. He hadn't asked after all. She slapped a smile onto her face. Still, he'd decided he would get it, in any case.

She shot her hands up to cover her eyes. Bother, he might have told her he was ready to change! She squeezed her eyes shut tight behind her hands; they were just friends, she wouldn't peek!

She lifted a hand from her face, just a little bit, and cringed. "Why do you have those?" she asked in a small voice.

Bobby turned to face her.

Oh. There were more.

"My grandparents have a farm," Bobby told her, touching her cheek on his way past her.

She watched him take the plastic coat hanger from the hook on the wall, in the mirror. "What do you do on your grandparents' farm?" 'That would give you bruises like that?' she wanted to add, but didn't.

"Fall over stuff, mostly," Bobby replied. "I'm a bit clumsy."

Kimono didn't believe it for one bit. Her brother had gotten into fights at school a load of times, and he'd never come home with bruises that bad. She supposed the person who'd done it had been angry, and scary.

She didn't even care that he'd used her word; 'stuff.'

She thought about the dead snake on the road earlier that day, but it didn't even compare; this was way scarier. She felt her eyes prickle with tears, which she instantly fought back. How good would it look, bawling her eyes out over something that hadn't even happened to her?

Yeah, great!

She kept her hands down, and stared at the carpet instead.

* * *

Patience was browsing an aisle of books, when Bobby approached her. She looked around, then, when she saw the clothes he'd picked, her gaze went up to his face. "It fits?" she asked practically.

Bobby nodded, his eyes moving to a book on the shelf behind her.

Kimono hummed t.A.T.u.'s _Friend or Foe _quietly.

Bobby turned away from the shelf quickly, shooting Kimono a brief sidelong glance.

Kimono frowned at him. He was smiling, and the look he'd given her was one that a friend might give another in relations to a secret, but different, too. "What?" she asked, looking into his face, but he was looking at the floor; he wasn't looking at her. It had been intimate, she realised.

She whipped around, her eyes searching the shelf for the book he'd been looking at. Her eyes reached a romance novel titled _The Saddest Little Valentine_. She wondered if he'd read it before. What was special about this one romance novel, the others next to it were romance novels too? It didn't even look to be an especially exciting romance novel, it wasn't part of any drama, suspense or paranormal line.

She turned back to Bobby. "What?"

Bobby's eyes were wide open, and he was staring in front of him, his blue gaze unwavering.

Kimono walked up to him and frowned a bit. "Are you okay?" She touched a hand to his hand holding the clothes over his arm; it was cold like ice. "Bobby?"

Bobby glanced at her quickly, a smile lighting up on his face. "Hello!"

She smiled, but the ice from his hand had travelled into her hand and up her arm and lodged itself inside her. He wasn't going to tell her now, she was sure; she felt it like a loss.

If Patience had heard him, she ignored him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Additional Disclaimer** I don't own _Sarie Marais_.

* * *

Sitting on the backseat with Bobby, the radio playing, Kimono began to feel more and more that she didn't belong in this place; that Bobby had been right, she would have to go. She didn't _want_ to go, but she sensed she still had some purpose to fulfil, and that it surely had to do with the man who could see her and his young, dead Asian friend.

She didn't like the idea of leaving Bobby, especially when he was sleeping and she could not say 'goodbye' to him properly, but she knew that he would understand that she had gone to do the right thing, if that, indeed, was what she was going to do.

She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, refraining from hugging him for not wanting to wake him, and allowed herself to leave the car.

* * *

The room that she came to lay in semi-darkness; it was not yet fully dark, but there had been some time delay, or distortion. It was later than it had been before, back in the car.

Perhaps she had been wandering, lost and confused, thoughtless but pure feeling, until she'd finally struck on the right place. She wasn't even sure it was the same day.

Across the room, through the half dark, someone was singing quietly. She listened and found that the words were not hard to make out, though she didn't think she'd heard the song before. "Oh, bring me back to the old Transvaal, that's where I long to be. Way yonder 'mongst the mealies by the green thorny tree, Sarie is waiting there for me."

She moved closer to the sound, finding that her feet made no sound against the floor, squinting into the darkness, the light decreasing as she moved away from the window.

Oh, it was the man and the girl. She supposed that she was at the man's house. They were lying on a bed, the girl with her head on the man's chest, her head almost touching his chin. Her eyes were closed; she might have been sleeping.

Kimono didn't really feel embarrassed. They must just have been friends, to be lying on a bed together as they were. She supposed the man was wearing a suit, and the girl a dress. She'd taken one of her tiny shoes off, or it had fallen off, but she still wore one shoe. "Were you waiting for me?" Kimono asked, without lowering her voice.

The man stroked the girl's hair, still gazing at the ceiling.

"Are you upset, because I left?" she pressed.

"We were not upset; it is not a requirement asked of you that you stay, hmm?" the man spoke calmly, in a quieter voice than Kimono had employed, obviously thinking that he was closer to the girl than her.

"I don't know," Kimono replied; she didn't. "Is she asleep?"

The man smiled. "She may be," he answered evenly.

When she got close enough to the bed, Kimono reached over to take off the girl's one lonely shoe, and bent over to place it on the floor by the bed, disappearing into the gloom without the backlight of the window, and reappearing as she straightened, a silhouette, not a girl. "Is there something that I can do?" she asked, pausing at the end of the bed, but not settling there.

"I don't know," the man told her.

"How will you know? What must I do? Is there something that I need to say, a magical word, or incantation?" She was rambling, though her words were as measured and calm as the man's. She refrained from a loud, 'This is total shite!' She'd not come to insult anyone's personage, dead or alive.

The man sighed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" she blurted, rambling at speed now.

"What are you sorry for, Kimono? You didn't make the answers, you just asked the questions. Don't stop asking questions, but be aware of a few things first, hmm? There won't always be an answer to your question, and the one that there is may seem somehow as not what you had set out to find, not what you were looking for, and some answers will never be what you're looking for, no matter from which angle you appraise them, however you look at them, some answers are somebody else's answers, and not yours. They're made for somebody else, do you understand? For the people who want to hear how they should and should not be to the extent of having little will of their own, and sometimes without knowing it, even. You're not that sort of person, are you?"

Kimono frowned. "I don't know."

"How would we?"

Instead of asking, 'What was that song you were singing?' she asked, "Who is Sarie?"

"Hmm." Maybe it was the dark, or maybe there really was a smile in his voice. "Perhaps she is longing, or the memory of caring, of the feeling of someone who cared, a loved one whose love you are sure is equalled only by your own?"

"Do you have someone like that, like Sarie?"

"I like to hope so, as I'm sure many of us do," he replied.

"Hope?"

"Why not."

Kimono smiled. "I like hope."

"I don't know what you're talking about," a sleep-worn voice murmured. "Is that a stripper? We have strippers? My foot's cold; I think I've lost my shoe! I want porridge, and can I have Papa Bear, too? He's so squishy; I want Papa Bear. Mama Bear can marry Harry Bear from down the lane, I'm keeping Papa Bear!"

The girl sat up suddenly, seemingly unaware of her surroundings, nor concerned by them. She stood on the mattress and leapt off the bed, into the darkness. She hopped on one foot, looking around for her missing shoe in the dark. "Why is it dark? How will we see the stripper if it's pitch dark?"

"I'm not a stripper," Kimono told her, "I'm a spirit energy."

"You're a what? Is that like an energy bar? Does that mean you're keeping your clothes on?"

"I'd like to keep my gear on, if it can be managed."

The girl huffed loudly, giving up on her missing shoe, and flopped down on the bed and leant back against the man's arm, who'd sat up. "I want Kyle," she told the man suddenly. "When Kyle comes back, we're getting strippers. Many, many strippers."

"Okay, when Kyle comes back," the man agreed.

Kimono had a feeling Kyle would not be coming back; he'd gone somewhere from which one did not readily return.

* * *

They'd found a motel with vacancies to spare, and Patience had asked Bobby to try on his new things. If they didn't fit, she'd like to be able to return them. Her opinion was that young people hardly ever knew what fitted and what didn't; Bruno would have told her that they liked to wear clothes that didn't fit, as he'd told her so many times before, and she'd have dismissed his argument. Why ever would someone _willingly_ pay for something that wasn't going to fit them, and then go so far as to wear it anyway?

Bruno would tell her that the people who wore clothes like that were people who wanted to hide, who didn't like who they were, or the bodies they were in, who'd been told by the media and their peer group that they _should_ hide themselves, that it wasn't proper to have shape and form, or substance, that it was pressing themselves onto others where they were not wanted, like people did not want to see Randy Evans below the short skirts, they'd rather see another yard of dyed, pressed material.

She was not a fan or friend of Randy Evans' short skirts, either. And she'd seen Eileen rush across the street once, just to try and pull Randy's skirt down to cover something, though the attempt had been unsuccessful and highly embarrassing for Eileen; Patience still didn't know if she'd done it to get a rise out of people like herself, or if she'd been honestly concerned with the length of Randy's skirts around young and impressionable minds such as her daughter Suzanne, and elderly, easily offended types, who, by rights, should not have had to put up with Randy's shenanigans, and which Randy's words of advice to were to stay in the aged care home, or put up.

Ever since Tashi had sidled from the picture in Missing Person's obscurity, Randy's skirts had been getting shorter, and her alcohol intake had been getting larger.

"You look very smart," was Patience's comment, when Bobby returned wearing his newly purchased clothes.

"No I don't," Bobby mumbled.

"You do," Patience replied, and stood up from the bed. She was in need of a coffee.

* * *

"What are you planning on doing when you're older, young man?" Patience asked him over pouring hot water into her mug, already supplied with a sachet of dried, instant granulated coffee.

Bobby didn't say, 'I'm not going to get older,' as he wanted to, as he knew would be the honest response, but thought, instead, about how he'd always wanted to be a pilot, though epileptics never really got jobs as pilots in the real world. "I'm good with engines," he said. "I'm good at remembering where all of the parts were, before anything was disassembled. They've books with illustrations, and I'm good at remembering the illustrations," he told her.

He wanted to say, 'Who cares about some silly, old job? I want to be a good person, a person who doesn't hurt other people because other people hurt them before and they think, _Well, now it's my turn_; I don't want a job because it makes people mean! If you have a job, somebody has a job above you, and their job gives them more money, or more leave time, and they get to tell you what to do, and you want more money, and more leave time, and to tell them what to do, to tell everyone who wants to tell you what to do what to do instead. It's not fair that _they_ get to tell you what to do, you're no less of a person than they are; why would you be? Why can't you have _their_ job? So you start to do the things that they do, and say the things that they say, and you're not really the same anymore, but you don't really care, because you've got the money, and you've got the time, and you've got the respect. Only, you never realise that respect is not fear, but trust.'

But how could he say that? So he said, "That's what I'm going to be!" As if he could see it, as if he believed it. Never mind those other things, what did respect, trust or knowledge have to do with anything when you had money?

If you only lived once, then why not go after those things, why not show those other people that you could do it, too!

Bobby sat down on the bed. He had to stop thinking for a moment, stop the thoughts; he felt very sad.

'Because hurting other things hurts you, too! Because those other things are a part of us, a part of this, this world that we're living in, and it's just not the right thing to do to hurt things because you've been hurt, when they're not hurting you! It just isn't! But I know, everyone does it.'

How could Patience understand, he thought, when she believed in Hell, when she believed that people who'd 'done wrong' should be punished forever, should be hurt over and over again, and never, ever helped; not ever.

He supposed that was why they'd put him on the piano at his mother's church; they'd been sick of his interfering questions, they'd needed for him to stop his questions, or it would be them no longer allowed into church. Couldn't she control him, he was _her_ son? He was just a _child_? Didn't she discipline him; wasn't she a good mother?

When Patience clasped his arms, he realised he'd been rocking back and forth, and stopped. That sort of thing always alarmed people, always unnerved them.

Patience brushed a bit of hair out of his face, and peered back at him. She didn't really see him; they didn't know each other, it wasn't likely. She saw who she thought he was, not the same person as who he thought he was; he wasn't sure; sometimes he thought there had to be others to be sure.

He looked into her face, into her eyes; she didn't like the coffee, she missed her family, she wasn't sure about him.

He closed his eyes. He didn't want to know; he wanted Mel. He didn't want to feel; it wasn't his, it even wasn't theirs.

He thought about the snake: Where did snakes live; what did they do at night, or in the day; what did they eat; when did they have babies, how long did it take for their babies to hatch; how long did they live; did they ever get sad and go out onto the road because they didn't want to be sad anymore?

He wiped his nose on the back of his hand; it wasn't working. When he opened his eyes, Patience was watching him. She placed a hand on his face; she thought she knew how to make him happy again.

It would make her happy, too. For a while, at least.

Before she started thinking about it.

He didn't want to make her unhappy. Maybe he could be happy too, if she wanted him to be?

Maybe she would have asked Bruno why anyone would chose to be sad when they could be something else, but she was a long way from home, and she'd not make it if she drove all night.

If she was happy, he'd be happy. How could he not be?

They were going to find Tashi; she trusted him.

It wasn't a bad thing. He wasn't going to hurt her, and she wouldn't hurt him.


	7. Chapter 7

Bruno couldn't sleep. His stomach hurt, and he couldn't understand why his mom had left. Didn't she love his dad and him anymore, or was it something else? Had someone hurt her? He knew, as soon as he'd had the thought, that it had been the wrong thing to think. He'd be dreaming of bad things happening to his mom now, he just knew it. He'd wake up upset, or crying, and his mom would still be gone, and who would be to say nothing bad had happened to her? And it just wasn't fair because she was his mom – and his dad's wife – Goddamn it! How could anyone be horrible to her, how could anyone hurt her? Didn't they know that she had a family at home, that, somewhere, someone cared for her; would be hurt if something happened to her? It didn't even really matter if she was a super, good person or not, because she still mattered to someone else, to another good person! Had he done something wrong; had he upset someone, and they'd taken it out on his mother? Had his dad upset someone?

He rolled over onto his front on his bed, pressing his face into the mattress. Why couldn't he just go to sleep, why couldn't he just stop thinking _these_ things! It wasn't fair at all! He just wanted to go to sleep; he needed to go to sleep, he had a math test in the afternoon. Even though his mom was missing, he still had to do some stupid math test. And why not? People went missing all the time, right? You just had to stop thinking about them for the time it took to do everything you had to do to keep up the appearances of a normal life, and then you could have all the time you wanted to feel sorry for yourself and do nothing else!

He lifted his head up to put his hands over his face, and put it back down on the mattress, thinking over and over: _Please let me sleep, please let me sleep, please let me sleep._

He so needed to sleep.

His eyes started to hurt with the pressure of pressing his hands into them, and unconsciousness found him.

* * *

Patience woke to the sound of strange words, and blinking open her eyes, she saw that Bobby was sitting on the floor, probably where he'd found it, reading from a book. She sat up.

Bobby was reading?

She shook her head. "What is that?" she asked, her voice a croak. She cleared her throat and repeated, "What is that? What language is that?"

The brightness in Bobby's eyes wasn't the morning light, it was excitement. "It's a book!" he told her in a rush, transitioning between languages effortlessly. "It's Dutch!"

"Are you sure you're reading it right?" she asked, straightening some more. A book, as if she couldn't see that for herself? "I thought you couldn't read? What happened to that?"

The happiness rushed from Bobby's face, leaving it eerily blank.

Patience's blood ran cold and she fought a shiver. How had she done it again? With this _thing_ she wasn't even sure was human, and she was dead sure wasn't sane?

Bobby laughed suddenly, some colour returning to his face. "Do you think I was reading it right? I don't know!"

Not human? What an outrageously farcical thought! What had she taken last night, or the night before that, for that matter? Patience pulled the blanket to her and stood; she had to get her stuff on, she was hungry. She said nothing to his query, and left the room.

She returned to find a fresh coffee awaiting her; Bobby sitting atop the counter, holding a half-empty glass of water on the counter beside him.

"You're not having a coffee?" she asked, trying not to sound paranoid. What would he have done to the coffee?

Bobby shook his head in answer, 'no,' and finished his water. He got down from the counter and walked to the sink to pour himself another glass of water where he stayed as he drank the water and rinsed the glass out in the sink, upending it on the draining board, before he turned back to face her.

Patience wondered if there was a reason for all the water. What if he had taken drugs; what if that was what he'd put in her coffee? Could you do that? "Are you thirsty?"

"A bit," Bobby replied.

"Is there a reason for that?"

"Dehydration isn't good; when your cells aren't properly hydrated, or oxygenated, you can become very sick."

Patience repressed a sigh; that wasn't exactly the answer she'd asked for. She sipped her coffee tentatively, but Bobby had added cold water to cool it, it wasn't scolding hot. She took another sip. "Dutch? Where do they speak that? Denmark?"

"Holland," Bobby told her.

She took a larger sip of her coffee, eager to be finished. "What do they have in Holland?"

Bobby rubbed his arms. "Tulips."

Patience drank the last of her coffee and placed the mug in the sink. "Cold?"

"Hungry."

She turned away from the sink and walked over to where he stood.

Bobby backed away from her.

Patience frowned, the feeling of suspicion mounting. "What's wrong? Have you taken something?"

Bobby shook his head; his gaze moved to the complimentary sachets from which he'd taken the coffee and sugar for Patience's coffee. There was one sachet of sugar remaining, and three sachets of artificial sweetener.

Patience noted that the artificial sweetener had not been removed. She stepped quickly to stand between the sachets and Bobby, anticipating his move.

He moved just as she'd thought.

Patience did not move from where she was standing; the sachets were staying right where they were.

Bobby's eyes filled with tears.

Patience hardened her gaze, warning him not to try anything.

A few tears rolled down his face; he was shaking.

"Do you need help?" Patience asked in a level voice. "Do you want me to take you somewhere for help?"

Bobby murmured something Patience couldn't make out.

"What?"

"Sugar, please."

She reached over for the last sachet of sugar, glancing behind her quickly. "Do you want this?"

Bobby stepped to the side, but she countered his movement swiftly, blocking his way. Bobby brushed fresh tears from his face, trembling worse than ever. "Water."

Patience pulled a face. What was he planning? "What do you need water for?"

Bobby didn't reply, but collapsed to the floor in front of her.

* * *

Patience sat in the waiting room, nervously reading through the same magazine article five times before she was asked by another person if she was done with the magazine, and handed it over, feeling silly.

A doctor returned as she was watching, but not listening, to a news update on the television across the room, wondering if she may need reading glasses. Her head hurt awfully; it'd been a year and a half since her last eye examination to check her eyesight.

When she stood up, she was lead to a room that looked more likely to hold a meeting rather than a patient; she didn't see Bobby anywhere.

The doctor explained that Bobby had not taken any illicit drugs, but the drugs he had taken were not the sort handed out by regular doctors. The woman with the doctor – Patience hadn't taken much notice of her before – asked if Bobby was her son.

"No, he's my son's friend," Patience answered, taking the seat she was gestured into with a feeling that she'd somehow lost control. "I'm taking him to see an aunt who's ill, for a favour." She didn't want to sit, but she didn't know what else to do. "What _is_ wrong with Bobby?" she asked, daring to inject a level of firmness into her voice; this could not be construed as her fault!

"You were not informed of any existing medical conditions, Mrs.-"

There was no sense in lying now; she'd have to use her card to pay for this little stint. "Cox, Mrs. Cox."

"Mrs. Cox?"

Patience shook her head. "No."

"Well, Mrs. Cox, your son's friend is diabetic. He's had a bit of a fall in his blood sugar levels."

"But you've helped him, haven't you?"

"Yes, we have done that, Mrs. Cox?"

Patience frowned, starting to become annoyed and increasingly agitated. "Then what's the problem?"

The woman started to step forward, but the doctor got there first. "Well, Mrs. Cox, to be frank, some of the drugs we found in your son's friend's system are very old; there're not used in the medical profession anymore, do you understand?"

Patience pushed herself to her feet. Did it look like she was a doctor, a toxicologist? "No, I don't understand!"

"To your knowledge, has your son ever told you of his friend suffering depression, mood swings, mental instability, confusion; have to ever been witness to any form of behaviour which might be thought of as self-harming, or potentially self-harming; aggressive toward others?"

Patience took a step backward, avoiding the chair but coming up against the table edge. "What are you saying?"

"It is possible that your son's friend is mentally ill," the doctor explained.

"His name is Bobby!" Patience fired up. "What-what did you say your name was again? What are either of your names?"

"Please, Mrs. Cox, you need to calm down," the woman stepped in.

"Why do I need to?" Patience shouted. "Do you even know what you're doing, or did you just purchase your papers over the web? Are you even _real_ physicians?"

"Mrs. Cox, please!"

Forcibly, Patience wielded herself into a gentler mood. She needed to co-operate only so long as it took to get Bobby out of this hospital.

The doctor was talking about involving the police, asking if Patience knew the names of Bobby's parents, their phone number. She only responded to nod, or shake her head. She didn't even know Bobby's last name; how could she possibly know his parents' phone number?

The doctor's pager bleated insistently. After that, he left in a hurry.

Patience remained with the woman, and fell back into the seat she'd earlier taken.

* * *

Later, after a drink of water from a small, flimsy plastic cup, Patience stood and explained that she needed to make a call; the woman nodded.

She could have waited, could have used her card for something, then waited, but what was the use. She slotted in a few coins, and dialled her husband's office.

* * *

She cried over the phone. She'd been so silly; oh God, oh Jesus!

Chris told her that he'd be there to pick her up, all she had to do was stay where she was, and rang off.

Patience sat down on the floor by the payphone to cry some more. Oh, she'd done such a silly, complicated thing! She'd made such a mess of her life, and her husband and son's lives!

* * *

Chris left the office directly, placing a call to the police department as he drove, his cell phone switched over to speakerphone mode.

The detective he'd been referred to was out, or too busy to take the call. He got the message machine.

Patience had just rung him with her whereabouts; he was going there now to see if she was there. If so, he guessed he'd be withdrawing the Missing Persons claim.

Outside of town, he pressed his foot on the gas.

Patience needed him; his wife needed him.

* * *

Bruno chewed the muesli bar he'd been offered by Darol, who had her arm around his shoulder, but he couldn't feel anything. He missed his mom. Soon, recess would be over, then lunch, and he'd have his math test, but he couldn't care less.

He rested his head against Darol's and passed her the other half of the bar; he wasn't that hungry anymore.

She took the bar and took a bite out of it.


	8. Chapter 8

A girly cry of excitement caught Patience by surprise, and she looked up in alarm, swatting tears from her face.

A blurry Shannen Cleary, dressed in a pair of jeans and sweater hurried toward her hastily.

Patience wondered if she'd fallen asleep, if she was dreaming. She remembered talking to Shannen a couple of years ago, during the research and filming stages of Ursula's episode of her television show. She stood on shaking legs. "My husband's coming to take me home; my Chris is coming," she told Shannen, tears dribbling down her face.

Shannen's arms went around her; she felt warm and safe. "Oh, Patience," she cooed.

Patience let herself cry.

"What's happened, darling?" Shannen asked gently, wobbling a leg to the Drifters' _Dance with Me_, playing over the stereo, in competition with the sounds of the television from the waiting room.

"I was foolish," Patience's face crumpled against Shannen's bubblegum-scented hair, "_I was lonely!_"

"That's understandable, darling," Shannen soothed. "Take it slowly, just take it slowly."

"I think he's dangerous," Patience blubbed, tears running into her mouth. "Oh Lord, how can I have been so foolish?" She stopped talking for a bit, to sob. "He said that he knew what had happened to Tashi Evans, he said that she'd been taken. He said he wanted me to help him; he was going to get her back. Oh, I was an idiot, a true idiot!"

"Tashi Evans?" Shannen asked tenderly, unfamiliar with the name, with the case.

"Randy's daughter," Patience choked. "Randy Evans. We're in a knitting club together."

"How cute!" Shannen cried. "That's something I'd like to do if I had the time; knitting! Oh, but that's so awful! What happened to her daughter?"

"She's been missing," Patience told her, trying hard not to choke, "for two years now."

Lady Gaga's _Just Dance_ filled the corridor. Shannen gripped Patience's hands. "Oh, I love this song! Though, for the life of me, I can't figure out why!" She wiggled to the beat. "My cameraman's had an accident; he's cut his hand, the poor thing."

Patience lifted her face from Shannen's hair and regarded her through wet eyes.

"You must tell me more about Tashi!" Shannen encouraged, twisting on the spot.

Patience frowned, trying to remember Randy's account of the events, what the police had said, shuffling her feet a bit, though she felt utterly ridiculous for it.

Shannen's face lit with a shiny, lip balm-smothered grin. Oh, she was feeling better! That was great; that was much better!

Patience stopped dead, body stiffening, as her eyes landed on Bobby, standing in the middle of the corridor.

"I don't want to stay," Bobby told her, still horribly pale.

Shannen's head moved to look in the direction of who'd spoken and she let go of Patience's hands, stepping apart from her. "Oh, gosh!"

Bobby looked at Shannen and made a face.

"Oh, gosh!" Shannen repeated, stunned. "You look…" He looked like Bobby Bowman, that's who he looked like! She lurched forward, extending a hand. "My name is Shannen; I'm a TV star! What's your name?"

Bobby stepped backward, and, a moment later, broke into giggles. "You think Jimmy is cute!"

With a sickening slam, the air was knocked from Patience's lungs. Oh Lord, it'd been the episode the week before Ursula's! Oh Lord, he looked the spitting image of that boy!

Shannen negotiated an uncertain smile onto her face.

"Oh God, his name is Bobby!" Patience cried to her.

Bobby laughed harder, colour returning to his face in his effort to breathe.

Shannen's eyes snapped to the wooden beads on his right wrist; oh! Oh!

Bobby started dancing to Ashlee Simpson's _In another Life_; Patience stared, transfixed. Then her legs started to move, she walked up to Bobby. He wasn't funny; she didn't find him amusing, in the least! She grasped Bobby's arms.

Bobby gave a shrill squeal, struggling to free himself. He didn't want to stop dancing; she wasn't in charge of him! No one was! "They're killing her!" he screamed, dropping to the floor. "They're killing her!" He started to shake. "You can't stop them!" He couldn't stop them!

He kicked out a foot. He needed to stand up, but he felt suddenly dizzy. He made a whimpering, whining sound. He just wanted to leave! Oh, please! He started to cry. Oh, please, somebody help!

He could still help Tashi!

Shannen reached her hand down to pull him to his feet.

* * *

There were people, men, that Patience didn't know, asking question after question; the doctor was saying that they've not done a full tox screen, but they've done enough. The men were with the DEA – Drug Enforcement Agency – asking after a bunch of old meds that were stolen from a military base, meds that shouldn't still be in circulation, but which her son's friend seemed to have taken. But she couldn't think, because too many people were talking at once, and Chris was supposed to be coming to pick her up, and all she wanted was her husband; not Bobby's _screaming_.

Bobby didn't want to talk to the men, so he had decided that screaming was the better option; Shannen is standing outside, in the corridor, a hand on her chest.

Oh, gosh; oh, gosh! He looked so much like Bobby, like the other Bobby; _her_ Bobby! What if he was her Bobby's son? Oh, gosh; what would she do then?

How the DEA arrived so fast, she didn't know; but they were good. She had to give them that!

Her eyes widened and she waved her arms empathically. "Gary! Hey, Gary! I'm over here!"

Her cameraman – Gary – strolled over, hand bandaged. So, he'd finally found her; lucky break, he'd been wandering around long enough.

In a few quick gasps, she relayed the business of the stolen medication and the DEA to him, then paused for breath.

Nobody ever said so, about her eyes, about how they looked like the decoration on a butterfly's wing, when they're so wide, with that large blue polka dot, and in the middle a smaller black polka dot, but Shannen saw it now, reflected in the glass window across the hall.

Did anyone ever suspect her of being strung out on something?

She imagined a thousand beautiful tiny wings beating; fern fronds; the shade cast beneath those fronds where she'd hid in the old butterfly house. But it'd never held _real_ butterflies, not in her days, it'd been broken then, all broken, and she'd often snuck inside and sat down, crossing her legs like she had done at school so many times before, and closing her eyes tightly, like a jam jar lid, in fact, _just_ like a jam jar lid. When her eyes were closed, she could imagine whatever she wanted; she could imagine that old butterfly house into life.

And _how_ she had imagined!

Amongst all of those butterflies, she was their fairy princess, their protector born as a human child; she was the butterfly queen.

But being an imaginary queen hadn't saved her from the cuts she'd inflicted upon her legs when she'd sat on the old, broken glass, fallen from various broken panes of the ceiling. She'd still always had those cuts.

Once, she'd snuck a moth into that old butterfly house, and it had fluttered about for a while, and it had almost looked like a real _live_ butterfly when she squeezed up her eyes so that her vision started to go, and she couldn't really see so well anymore.

Of course, she'd seen real butterflies before. She'd seen a load of real butterflies. The pity was that they'd been dead, and pinned to a backing board when she'd seen them, and it'd been from the other side of immaculately kept glass, so that she wasn't even allowed to touch the glass, let alone their wings, in case she smudged the glass with her _grubby_ child fingerprints.

Bobby had stopped screaming, and she allowed herself to relax a little. Maybe she'd get a coffee whilst she was waiting for Chris Cox – she'd promised Patience that she'd tell him _exactly_ what had happened when he arrived.

Gary, she noticed, had wasted no time in chatting up a nice, young nurse, and she supposed she wished him good fortune; if only there'd been a nice, young _male_ nurse for _her_ to chat up!

She traced a butterfly shape on the soft inside of her arm where she'd pulled up her sweatshirt sleeve, and dreamed of the children she would someday have. She would have a whole heap of children; there'd be Dorothy, Supré, Afi, Imagine, and that was just for the girls. She was going to have at least two boys; maybe she'd name them Dean and Jimmy.

She took out her digital recorder and dictated a few short notes, along with the names Patience had given her: Tashi and Randy Evans.

She put her recorder away and smiled. Well, the boy was _hot_ when he danced, she had that much to say about the matter, and she happened to like boys who liked dancing, though she wasn't much of a dancer herself. Still, she supposed he wasn't much older than sixteen, and if she hurt his feelings she'd probably have his crazy father to deal with, which, though she'd love to be able to interview him, she wouldn't much like the idea of doing it whilst she was being chased with an axe by a loony.

No, thanky you; she'd stick to photographs of cute men on the internet.

* * *

"What a cute boy!" Shannen announced, sing-song bright, freeing herself of the wall with little pushy persuasion, as Bobby was escorted out of the makeshift interrogation room by a male nurse.

Oh, so that was _where_ they'd hidden him, go figure!

She reached a hand for the nurse's arm, halting his progress. "Hold up!" She nodded to Bobby. "Family friend; I'd like a word with the rug rat. If you wouldn't mind, of course?" She flashed a pearly grin.

The nurse nodded; he'd allow it.

Shannen turned, smiling, toward Bobby.

He'd regained most of his normal colour; he looked almost healthy.

She shuffled closer to him. "I _think_ I know your daddy," she told him, as though she were addressing a preschooler.

"You mean my brother," Bobby responded, frowning. "And you don't _know_ him, you've never met him."

"I think your parents would have been a little old, pip!" Shannen drawled. "You're just that little bit _too_ young."

Bobby shrugged. "I'm not real; I'm a corporeal projection. I look real, and feel real, I even sound real, but you see, I'm only borrowing these atoms for a stint; I haven't bought them. Like a library loan, except my library card's better than your library card!" He smiled, impressed with the handling of his speech.

"Do you watch _Star Wars_, huh? I think your brain's gotten a little square from all of that television. It's fantasy, shiny. It's not real; it's just that."

"So am I pip or am I shiny or am I rug rat?" Bobby asked.

"No, you're _Bobby_, of course! How could I forget that name?" She was tired, and craving a coffee, but she wasn't about to let a _kid_ get the better of her. "So where'd you get the drugs, pop?"

"I don't know what you're talking about; I haven't taken any _drugs_." He frowned at the seriousness of the word. "My preliminary toxicology screen was clean. Do you really think the DEA agents would have let me off like that if they hadn't been? There was a mix up, or a _stuff up_ with my first tox screen, but it's been fixed. This is a busy hospital, a lot of people coming through their doors in a day, every day; there's a lot of room for error. The staff are worked too hard, too long; it's wilfully criminal, but it's legal. If they speak up, they're fired, blacklisted; who wants to speak up, then? Gonna get worse, but nobody says a thing; are you stupid, do you want that brought to your doorstep, to your family's doorstep? So you say nothing, right?" He shrugged. "So, I've gotta go; my folks'll be spitting chips when they find out I ditched the crappy school outing. What's the point, the girls are total frigid bitches, and the teachers are so _dumb_. Later, TV doco star!" He snorted, amused, and turned and walked away.

Shannen stared after him. What an awful child, she could _not_ believe she'd ever found him cute; he was an awful, mad thing, and she found him detestable in the gravest, most severe manner. She had half a mind to go after him and tell him so, though, arguably, she was a television star, and he was a schoolboy, and her little piece of her mind would cost her a lot more than it would cost him, lawyer's expenses compared to psychiatrist's visits that rich mommy and daddy were paying for.

Oh, the despicable things that passed for the young, future generation these days.

She'd been standing outside that door for _three_ hours, filling in crossword after crossword in her mini travel crossword book, and for what?

To be laughed at!

Life just wasn't fair sometimes.

* * *

Patience had been shown the way to the hospital cafeteria over an hour ago, and Shannen wondered if she should not head the same way herself; she'd have to start her search for Gary somewhere.

She was just on the point of making her decision, five minutes later, when she spied Chris Cox hurrying her way.

He paused when he saw her, and she told him quietly, "The cafeteria; that way," and he was off again, not so much as a 'yeah, thanks for the time.' But, of course, he wouldn't know anything about the time, so what did it matter to him; if she'd been standing here for _six_ hours, he'd just have assumed it'd been six minutes.

It didn't really matter to her, either; she was just tired.

She picked up her legs and decided to give them a bit of a stretch on a walk outside for some fresh air; her lungs needed it, somehow, hospitals always ended up giving her rashes, and if it wasn't a skin allergy, it was a sore throat for a week.

She wasn't a friend of hospitals, privately.

Her skin felt much better outside in the sunshine, and she sighed, glad to have navigated the multitude halls and floors with some degree of bearing still intact. She squinted across the packed parking lot and scowled. _Yeah, right! Going back to school!_ She laughed, throat scratchy, though she was sure it was more to do with her imagination than anything, certainly illness, or maybe it was dehydration.

Out of all the people on the planet, it had to be at least _possible_ for one of them to look the identical image of another without being in the slightest way related anymore so than every human being on Earth was said to be related. And the thing with the name, Bobby was a fairly popular name in the USA, and had been for some time, and it could be that his name wasn't even Bobby, that it was Robert, or Robard, even Rupert, and he'd just decided to nickname himself Bobby after a celebrity, or some other idol or inspirational figure he'd taken.

She worked her feet faster and came to a stop beside the grassy patch, under a tree, where Bobby was lying. "Mommy and daddy not home?" she asked. "Didn't get you the Ferrari you were hoping for on your birthday, got you a lousy Volvo instead?"

A light breeze whipped her hair.

She frowned at the blood nose, and at the ant stamping miniscule footprints across his cheek in blood. "Bobby?"

"Bobby can't get to the phone at the moment," Bobby relayed in a monotone. "Please leave an audio message stating your name and a viable contact number and he will return your call as soon as humanly able. Recycling is your friend; recycle and live."

A smile twitched at the corners of Shannen's mouth, for a moment, and died. "What are you doing?" she asked, feeling the wind more insistently than she had when she'd stepped out of the building no more than a minute ago.

Bobby didn't respond, and Shannen watched the ant march away into the grass and disappear. She'd probably have been able to see where it had gone if she'd gotten down and had a close look, but she didn't move.

She was suddenly, chillingly cold. "Hi, it's Shannen! If you can call me back as soon as you get this, on 5665-2863, that'd be great. Okay, bye." She hoped Bobby would get the meaning of the numbers, that, on an average cell phone, the numbers corresponded to the letters that made up the sentence _Look at me._

Bobby's eyes flickered in his head from a moment, and then, slowly, he sat up. "And here you are again, Miss Cleary."

Shannen blinked rapidly, shrugging away her fright.

He got to his feet, with some effort, and turned to face her properly. "Did you have more questions; did you forget out of upset?"

Shannen lifted a finger to her face and brushed it over her top lip, indicating his blood nose.

He wiped it away on his sleeve, unconcerned that it was white and might be stained. "You might think of it as more of a contracting out of a job, a task; a work order," he said. "Those were not real DEA agents; that was not a real doctor. They're with a group called the Angelina Corporation, a scouting party connected to the consignment that was stolen from the military base, if, in fact, there was a consignment, and it was, in fact, stolen. More likely that they're tracking a particular drug, that what they're looking for are specific individuals who have been exposed to the drug." He narrowed his eyes, absorbed in his thoughts. "Perhaps they've statistics; perhaps it is linked to a particular expression of the anomaly, by their workings? Perhaps they are looking for volunteers?"

"An anomaly of the blood; like they think vampires are real, or something?" Shannen asked with consternation, a frown etched into the corners of her eyes. How could a healthy, thinking person believe in something like vampires?

"It would do to tread lightly, I think," Bobby told her. He'd given the Angelina operatives a false identity that had checked out; that of a boy named Robert Warner, but Shannen was a recognisable television identity, and she'd hardly been close-guarded about who she was; she'd been open, believing herself able to trust a body such as the DEA, and the doctor who'd attended him.

"G-gary-!" Shannen's hand dived into her pocket for her cell phone and she punched out a number hurriedly, then, growing impatient, she turned and raced back toward the hospital, dodging parked cars as she went, as though part of a crazy, pinball sprint.

Bobby didn't bother to tell her that Gary wasn't in any danger, the Angelina contingency had departed minutes ago. The Angelina Corporation was not his concern; Tashi was. He could not stop them from what they were doing, they were shaded under the Triumvirate's protection as much as the Center was.

* * *

Her face hard, Patience stalked up to Bobby and grasped his arm roughly. She would do this one last thing for him, she would take him to where he believed Tashi to be, and she would do no more.

She'd seen Chris in the cafeteria, looking for her, for his wife, but she'd been unable to go to him. She'd hurt awfully, knowing that all she would need to do would be to walk up to him, or call out his name.

She'd needed to know that he would come, but, she'd realised painfully, she also needed to see this through. If there was even a remote chance that Tashi was still alive, she could not, with good conscience, give up on her. It wasn't about Bobby, and it wasn't about her; it was about Tashi!

She had to believe that Chris would come again, when she called; that he would take her back when she returned.

She released Bobby's arms, propelling him toward the car, and barked after him, "Get in the car!" They weren't playing around this time, they were going to go to Tashi, and then they were through; she hoped to never set eyes on him again.

* * *

Chris fell into an uncomfortable plastic chair, allowing the tiredness to have run of his body. So much for Patience's call; he'd been ready to call up Bruno's school, after he'd met Patience, and confirmed that she was well and safe, with the good news, and now he found that it was not good news, after all; that it was only further conflict and confusion, that it was only further pain.

He had no idea what Patience's deal with the boy was, but he wondered if perhaps he'd lost her, and, for a moment, he couldn't breathe.

He really did love Patience, he realised.

He prayed that he could forgive her, just once more; that Bruno could forgive her, and that when she returned, it would be because she'd realised that she loved him, and that she loved the family that they'd created.


	9. Chapter 9

"You seem to know my name; thing is, I don't know yours," Kimono said. It was late afternoon, almost evening. She stood in a small, high-walled brick courtyard, practising what she might say to the man when he returned from wherever it was he'd gone, work, probably.

Apparently it hadn't been a house after all, at least, not a proper one, with a backyard; it was more of a townhouse, really.

"Lyle, and I'm Tazu."

Kimono started and her eyes darted to the young Asian she'd met only a few days ago, the dead girl, like her. "Right, so he's your boyfriend?"

"No, he's my associate, but we're friends."

Kimono frowned, aiming a kick at a little pebble from the road with her shoe; she missed, it stayed right where it was. Stupid dusk! "What are you doing with him anyway? Like, why don't you just… 'cross over'?"

"What?"

"Cross over, to the light?" Kimono wasn't sure if she even knew what she was talking about. Maybe she'd never seen _Ghost Whisperer_.

Tazu made a face, jutting up her chin. "I've unfinished business with the living," she answered.

So, obviously she knew something. Which wasn't a bad start, even if it was only a television show. Kimono frowned, thinking this through. "The guy who killed us?"

Tazu laughed, her eyes flashing darkly.

The topic was _so_ not up for discussion, Kimono supposed. "So why is this human helping you?" she skipped on, confused. It didn't really sync; he wasn't dead, he had a life, why would he waste it on some stupid ghost energy, or whatever? (They weren't cute little blonde, blue-eyed girls). Like he even got it, he was alive! "How is he helping you?"

Tazu's cackle sent shivers to her spine. "_Human!_"

In Kimono's opinion, Tazu was being deliberately unhelpful. "We're not human anymore, we're energy – so human!" she defended.

"Maybe because I asked him."

A sceptical look crossed Kimono's face in the gathering darkness, almost indistinguishable. Right, like she thought she had some magical power over the living; or maybe they were getting somewhere? "You asked him?"

"No, but I could have."

_No?_ "Does he like you?" she forged on. It was a good, logical question.

"Why wouldn't someone like me?"

"Is he interested in you?" Kimono asked, repressing the urge to roll her eyes. What a dummy! What a weirdo!

"He's not your age!" Tazu fired up. "The world isn't just about him, and what he can do for himself. There are other people living in the world too, and as long as you're alive, you have to live with them. Why are you so stupid and ignorant?"

Kimono stood gob smacked for a second, waiting for her temper to flare, and her mouth to work over the shock. There it was! "Huh! What did you just call me, ho?"

"What's this? A pub brawl? The bartender tell you to take it outside, girls?"

The new voice wasn't that of the man Kimono had met before, but it was also a man's; Kimono frowned.

Tazu whipped around and raced away into the darkness with a cry of: "Thomas!"

"Hey there, cheerful!" sounded Thomas' winded reply.

Kimono crossed her arms and hurried forward through the gloom, squinting in the darkness to make out the man's form, but Tazu was blocking most of her view, hugging the man tightly.

"We thought you were gone!" Tazu revealed loudly.

"Well, I came back."

"Did you bring Kyle?"

Thomas shook his head gently.

"Not even Jimmy?"

"You miss him? Gee!"

"He's younger than me; I can make jokes at him," Tazu explained.

Thomas laughed. "It's just me."

"Are you dead?" Kimono asked, stepping closer, arms still crossed.

Thomas looked over in her direction. "I'm not connected to a body, as you would call it; that's right."

"You're dead!"

"No, I'm not dead; I'm just… unemployed…"

Kimono huffed, noticing Tazu's smile. What a silly sap!

* * *

Bruno wouldn't talk to him when Chris finally made it home at 9 P.M.; he'd left a message on the answering machine that he was staying over at Darol's, but when Chris had rang Carol, Bruno had refused to come to the phone.

Chris supposed that meant he was mad at him. He'd tried to leave him, too, like his mother. Yeah, that'd be the kid's angle, he supposed. He'd not take into account that maybe he'd been looking for his mother, just that he'd chickened out and slinked on back home.

Now why in the Hell would be want to leave his family?

But maybe that wasn't what Bruno thought, maybe he was just upset because he hadn't rung to say he'd be late. He supposed it'd be a good thing to do to get a key made for the house for Bruno, in case he was ever home late again, but it would take some thinking beforehand; he didn't want Bruno inviting friends around and hosting parties when he was out.

He sat back with a beer from the bar fridge in the garage and switched on the television and DVD player in the entertainment room to re-watch Ursula's episode of _True Crimes_.

He needed to do some heavy thinking before he made any solid decisions.

* * *

"What'll happen then, when we _do_ find Tashi?" Patience wouldn't say _if_, it was _when_. "If Randy gave her up, she'll just send her right back again when we bring her back!" She didn't take her eyes from the road to prompt a reply, Bobby was up the front with her – he wasn't going to be sleeping, there would get this thing done as quick as possible – watching the road, also.

"She worked for them," Bobby eventually replied, his voice dull. "She'd hoped they hadn't found out, but they had. She couldn't risk Tashi's future without knowing for sure; she wasn't the same as Tashi, it came from her father. She was frightened; she had to say what she said. It would be better if Tashi didn't ask about her, because maybe then they'd let her remember; it didn't matter if she hated her for it. When we reach Tashi, I'll send them to Jarod; he'll understand."

Patience kept her eyes on the road, kept firing questions. She needed to get her mind around the whole thing. "Who's Jarod?"

"A friend, I hope."

Incredulity stained her voice. "You hope?" She suppressed a bout of hard laughter. "You said Randy worked for the people who took her daughter. Who are they? Is she still working for them? I want some answers out of you, boy!"

"They're called the Center," Bobby replied, "and, no, she's no longer working for them."

"And what about Tashi; what's she got that Randy hasn't? What makes her so special to these people, this Center?"

"She has an anomaly in her genetics; it's just the business that they're in, they deal with people with this anomaly. A business, like any other business."

At Bobby's _just_, something in Patience gave out. "You tell me how a frightened 10-year-old child helps them run their business!" she yelled.

"She's one of many; but more is merrier," Bobby told her. "This economy says that it must expand; businesses expand too. To what end does not matter, _end_ is just a word, it has no meaning in the world of money, the money will always go somewhere; if you lose it, someone else will gain it. Loss and gain, that's all it is. To us, life and death is real; the economy is just an artificial construct put in place as a controlling mechanism, a model for our interaction, but to the economy, life and death is the unreal construct, the sideshow. Life, death, it all makes money; moves money."

Patience's resolve broke, and she burst into harsh, raucous laughter. "Are you a student of economics? Did you even go to school? Hang on! Are you with these people?" It was all a joke; Bobby was not going to con her again, she'd crash the car and kill them both if it came to that; it was just so funny, she couldn't stop laughing.

"The Center are not the only ones; they like to think they are one of the leaders."

"The only ones who abduct children from their families?" Patience roared.

"They are not all abducted; they do not all have families. My wife worked for one of their farms, that was where we met."

Patience choked, almost jerking the steering wheel in her hands. "Your wife!" She pressed down hard on the brake pedal with her shoe, causing them to lurch forward in their seats.

Bobby whacked his head on the dashboard. "That was entirely necessary?" he asked seriously, looking around at her.

She glared at him with death in her eyes. He had a wife? How old was he exactly? He'd lied to her, made her believe he _needed_ her help! She felt disgust rear in her, spreading quickly throughout her body, hot and furious.

"Keep driving," Bobby only told her, and returned his gaze to the windshield.

* * *

The silence stretched on, like the darkness enclosing them, but for the beams of the car's headlights, lancing through the colourless night world, sharp and surgical.

Patience allowed her disgust and anger to stew, quietly.

"You're wrong about JR," Bobby spoke, breaking the long silence, "he was not the one who harmed your daughter; she is alive. But we both know that she is not your daughter, in reality."

Words alone were enough for Patience to want to kill him, but the words he'd chosen made her want to kill him several times over, slowly and painfully. Ursula had been her daughter in every way that counted, and she'd been her mother! How dare he, how dare he say otherwise!

"We need to stop, I need to eat," Bobby told her plainly.

Patience almost wanted to tell him to go to Hell. Instead, she said, "It's 10:20!"

"When there is a place," Bobby merely replied.

* * *

"What would you know?" Patience hissed harshly, from across the table, the pair seated in a booth in a roadhouse diner. "What children do you have?"

"I have four," Bobby replied.

Patience fell silent, fuming.

* * *

Once they'd eaten, it was back on the road.


	10. Chapter 10

"You rest; I'll drive now," Bobby's soft, calm voice broke through her thoughts.

It was no use fighting, she was ready to drop off. She pulled the car onto the side of the road, and changed seats. She didn't ask how Bobby was going to drive; he'd said he couldn't, her eyes were already closing.

* * *

She woke in the car, still in the front seat; the digital time display read that five hours had past since she'd fallen asleep at half past eleven; 4:25.

The car had been parked outside of a building, built of block; a public toilet? They'd come to a town!

She hadn't a clue of which town, of the town's name; population.

She straightened in her chair and looked about her, searching for any sign of Bobby. The car's doors had been closed; the car locked. She reached for a doorhandle and pushed out the door.

The early morning stung with chill, bit her fingers, her nose.

Her shoes found the ground, close, soft. She stumbled forward, from the car, and flung back an arm to close the door. The sound of the door slamming, loud in the quiet morning hours before sunrise, startled her.

She lumbered toward the circle of light cast from within the toilet, and her eyes scrunched, noticing the padlock and chain secured around the wire mesh door; the door pushed back, open, padlock unlocked.

With shaking legs, she allowed herself to step into the building, onto concrete flooring, footsteps precise, ringing. Two, three steps inside the entrance, she stood and listened to the sounds of someone throwing up. She folded her arms; it was cold. She shuffled her feet a bit.

Oh, God, Bobby had found some way of picking that lock, hadn't he? That was illegal! She stumbled backward, wanting nothing to do with illegal activities, before she remembered that she was assisting a crazy boy to _kidnap_ a 12-year-old child.

She shuffled forward, feet tired in shoes, and edged further into the toilet. The overhead lights flickered jarringly, moth's wings batting, at strange, uneven intervals; steadying again, flickering again.

The sounds had changed around her, fled and returned different, changed. She slowly rounded the bend from the section housing taps and sinks, surfaces dull; smudged; dented monitor-sized square plates of metal for mirrors, into rows of cubicles.

She'd walked into the women's, not the men's; the men's must have been around the other side; farther. (She'd have taken the men's, around the other side of the building, less obvious from the road).

Bobby's voice drifted to her from the floor, disfigured, "Please, I just need a few minutes."

She froze in place, watching him in astonishment; couldn't manage shock. There was something wrong with him, terribly wrong with him.

His eyes were large, turned almost to the top of his head; skin pale, quivering bodily. He tried to speak again, couldn't.

He wanted her to turn away; return to the car? She stayed still, watching him. Her eyes darted to the car keys, by the door to a cubicle – _Oh, there they are_ – and back to Bobby's face, pained. For a moment, she steeled; wished him pain; then she watched, no more wishing.

His spine shifted, body trembling in fit – _Don't fight,_ she thought; smile curving lips – a violent shaking. She wondered if it hurt, watching as he tried to gain control of his eyes, turned into the top of his head. _Not yet, nope, wait for it…_

Then the shaking subsided, eyes returning to normal positions, watching a bright ceiling with staring eyes.

She watched a minute longer, watched the heaving chest, eyes unmoving, the occasional spasm in an arm, or twitch of the head, a foot.

Her body felt so heavy; her legs so tired, despite the sleep. She moved toward the cubicles, took the closest door, and seated herself on top of the toilet seat.

It would be over soon.

She rose from the toilet seat, startled by the chatter of birds, gathering legs, and drifted out of the cubicle, pausing at the boy lying on the floor, frowned at the blood – she hadn't seen _that_ before, strange. She prodded an arm with her shoe, watched the chest rise and fall; it was time to go.

She turned on her heel, walked toward the curve on the way out, stopped and turned back, for a moment. Her voice came out hoarse, wispy in the cold air; its cruel edge lost to the rattling of teeth. "Wish your wife was here now?"

She didn't wait for a reply, but moved around the corner, toward the taps and paper towelling; she'd need something to clean up the blood before they left.

* * *

By the time she'd wiped up the most of the blood, it was daylight outside. She'd even heard a truck outside, collecting bins. Her backed hurt horribly; she couldn't deal with this cold, and the bending over.

She got down on her knees beside Bobby, tugging on his arms. He was too heavy for her to lift. She tugged at his arms again. Yuck! His clothes were disgusting, covered in dark muck from the floor, and splotches of blood, some of it dried already, some of it not. "Come on, get up!"

As if the sound of her voice had animated him from his dead stupor, he began rambling incoherently.

Patience regained her feet, legs wobbling, and bent painfully to yank on his shirt, hoping to get him to act. "Get up!" she protested, upset. Why couldn't he just get up?

His eyes tried to turn in his head, but he kept them from doing so.

"What?" Patience frowned; had he said something? She needed to get out of this cold, soon. And they needed to get out of this toilet, and replace the lock!

"Bad idea…" Bobby murmured. He rolled over and began to draw himself up, into a kneel, wincing every now and then. "Here…"

"What?"

Bobby coughed, doubling over onto his thighs. "We're here…" he choked out, frowning in confusion. A long bout of coughing, and a pale shaking hand reached out in her direction.

Patience turned and walked away, toward the exit. If he could talk, he could walk.

She waited at the entrance for Bobby, and when he'd managed stepping free of the wall, she pulled the wire door closed quickly and rewound the chain, replacing the padlock with a small, satisfied click.

She passed Bobby on her way over to the car, half kneeling, half sitting on the grass and dropped an unimpressed, "Get up!"

They had a plan to formulate, a little girl to save, and she was hungry and cold.

Getting into the car, she noticed that the fuel gage was low. Great! _Just_ great!

When Bobby had made it to the car, and inside, she cranked up the heating dial and started the ignition, snapping, "Shut the door!"

Bobby pulled the car door closed beside him, out of breath.

"I'm going for breakfast, and the car needs gas," she told him carelessly, and crunched out a gear, pulling away from the curb.

* * *

Sitting in a bakery, the cold gripping Patience began to thaw; her legs tingled painfully, jets of pain running up her muscles.

"Just wait for us to come out, that's all you have to do," Bobby told her, chewing a bitten fingernail. "W-with the car, of course!" A note of panic entered his voice, as though he thought she might have found a clever hiding spot for the car and would take it there and refuse to disclose the location.

She let him stew; at least she'd been able to get him to put his shirt on over the grubby long-sleeved tee shirt.

He sucked in a suspicious breath and began an encore fit of coughing.

Patience picked out the sugar sachets she'd add to her mug when her hot coffee arrived with their breakfast.

* * *

"I'm going to lose the car, okay," Patience told him as she drove along a dirty, house-lined street. "I'm not going to pay for the gas, I'm going to drive away."

Bobby leant against the car door heavily, head against the glass, staring out the window, hand on the glass.

"Put your hand down!" she admonished. "You're going to smudge the glass."

Bobby's eyes flickered shut from a moment, but he didn't move his gaze.

* * *

The service station was, thankfully, open. Patience pulled up to the right pump, and filled the tank, watching the digital numbers changing on the pump's LED display. _Smart fuel, ha!_

She was cold again.

She hunkered her shoulders as she made her way across the cracked, filthy concrete laneway, stained with oil, radiator fluid; watching for raised concrete. Glaring white light threw itself at her face as she reached the step of the glass door, sand in her eyes; it wasn't until she'd stepping inside that she saw how the artificial lights illuminated the dirtiness of her own clothes. She suppressed a desperate laugh, and headed for the counter, attended by a young Indian girl.

_Oh, Lord, please let her speak English_, Patience prayed.

The girl smiled, asking how her evening had been and wishing her a good day in Maryland's brand of American English, immaculately white teeth flashing brightly, making Patience conscious of the state of her own teeth.

The girl had beautiful pure skin, Patience thought as she stepped out into the cold once more. She handed Bobby a chocolate bar at the car and started the engine.

Driving away from the service station, she reached across for Bobby's hand and rested it on her thigh.

* * *

She parked the car across the road from the Center's Maryland branch – it looked more like a TAFE centre than anything sinister – beside a tired, weedy oval, watching the large, black bitumen parking lot and periodically counting the cars parked there, three or four, so far.

When Bobby returned, almost an hour later, she'd switched the radio on; she'd listened to the same advert six or seven times, and was thoroughly sick of it.

The girl who accompanied Bobby looked nothing like Tashi Evans, and was, at once, her identical twin. She was dressed in a grey uniform, and did not speak.

Patience switched the radio off and put the car into gear and drove away from the local community oval. "That it?" she asked, as they rounded the corner away from the Center.

"That's it," Bobby confirmed in a breathless voice; he was fixing Tashi's seatbelt. "Do you want some music, Ta?" he asked.

"I'm hungry," Tashi responded in a dead voice.

Patience's stomach twisted. What had they done to the girl?

Bobby took the chocolate bar from his pocket and offered it to her, frowning. It probably wasn't the best thing to be eating for breakfast, but he had nothing else.

Tashi took the chocolate bar, unwrapping it carefully, and took a bite out of it. She chewed the piece a bit before swallowing it, then turned to address Bobby, who'd taken a seat on the backseat beside her, "Does it hurt?"

"A bit," Bobby admitted.

Patience picked a CD and switched the CD player on.

"Yes, please," Tashi said from the backseat.

Patience's hand paused, then inserted the CD into the CD player, and turned up the volume. Christina Aguilera filled the car.

* * *

Patience took Bobby as far as the next town, and dropped him at the train station. She found an old jacket of Darol's in the trunk, sporting a bright, exciting pattern with flowers of all colours. She doubted Darol would even remember she'd left it in her car; she must have deposited it some four months ago.

Patience had seen her getting around in a new one since.

Wearing her new jacket, Patience took Tashi to the office with her to buy the tickets.

"Bobby kicked their asses," Tashi shared, as they were waiting in line, "you should have seen him. He was wonderful. I think he must have been trained."

Patience frowned. "Whose asses did Bobby kick?" she asked, voice quietened.

"Sweepers! Tower Sweepers!" Tashi's eyes were bright. "They're alive, but they'll be sore." Her voice swelled; she liked that idea. "Bobby put the building into lockdown; cut off the communications so the others won't know. At least, for a while. I think it's going to work."

Patience could not say the depth of chill that raced through her, at that moment, at hearing the girl's words. She forced herself to say something, to break through the awkwardness, to make an effort for Tashi's sake. "What does Bobby think?"

"He's hard to read, but I think it's going to be okay; I think he thinks it's going to be okay." She lifted her face to Patience's. "What do you think, Patience?"

Patience's heart faltered. She hadn't told the girl her name; she wondered if Bobby had. "I think it's going to be okay, too," she voiced quietly, hoping that Tashi would believe her.

Tashi smiled.

* * *

As they stepped out of the station house, onto the platform, Patience noticed Bobby was talking to someone on the coin-operated payphone at the wall. He turned a short while later, and began to make his way toward them.

Patience and Tashi had taken a seat on a metal bench and Tashi eyed the vending machines to their left, one of them selling packet chips, chocolate bars, bubblegum, and other sorts of sweets, another selling fizzy drinks and bottled water, and another still selling hot drinks.

"Mommy's going to meet us there," Tashi told her, tearing her gaze from the vending machines. She kicked her legs, though they already reached the floor, and her funny shoes scraped on the platform floor.

"Do you want something from the machines?" Bobby asked, stopping beside the bench where they sat. He must have still had some coins left over from his phone call to Randy.

Tashi jumped from the bench, face lightening. "Chips, please!" she told him.

"You show me the ones," Bobby said, walking away toward the vending machines.

Tashi skipped after him.

Patience didn't get up to follow them, conscious of the surveillance camera mounted on the wall.

Tashi pointed to a bag of tomato-flavoured potato chips on the other side of the glass.

Bobby laughed. "Those ones."

Tashi rolled her eyes and scrunched up her nose, smiling at him. Of course! Which ones had he thought she meant?

Patience got to her feet.

Tashi smiled as she added coins to the machine, and waited for her chips to fall to the bottom. She dived to collect them from the little hatch, and straightened, grinning, bag of chips in hand.

Patience turned and walked away, back to the parking lot. It was time to go; she had a call to place.

At the car, she sat down and dialled her home phone number on her cell phone, waiting for it to pick up. As she was waiting for it to be answered, she watched a man leave one of the rooms toward the front of the train station, dressed in a security officer's uniform, and head toward the main office.

The telephone picked up. "Bruno, Cox Residence."

Patience's chest hurt. "Oh, Bruno!" she cried. "I'm coming home! I'm coming home to stay!"

There was a long pause, then she heard Bruno's voice, "Are you sure?"

"Oh, honey! Yes, honey! Yes!"

"I've gotta go; school," Bruno explained, allowing his voice to trail away.

Patience's mouth curved in a smile. Oh, she'd just caught him! How lucky she had been to catch him before he left for school!

"Mom?"

She nodded; she was listening still. "Oh, yes, honey?"

"I love you; dad and I both love you," Bruno told her.

Patience's eyes shone. How could she ever think about leaving them? Oh, what had she been thinking? "Oh, I love you too! I love you both! Dad, too!"

"Do you want me to give you to dad?" Bruno asked, unsure.

"Yes, honey. Oh, yes, thank you."

"Then, I'll see you later."

Patience's brow crinkled. "Yes! Yes! I'll see you later…"

* * *

Randy stood waiting for the train carrying her daughter to arrive, wearing her shortest short skirt and knee-high boots. She closed her eyes for a second, uttering a silent prayer.

A breeze ruffled her short, spiky hair, and she opened her eyes.

The train!

The doors opened slowly, so _slowly_, and then she saw her little girl.

Tashi had fallen asleep, lying across two chairs, her face rested on an envelope.

Oh, how big she'd gotten! She was a proper teenager already!

Randy hurried onto the train, eyes only for her daughter.

* * *

Jarod frowned at the spiky-haired woman and kid in a neon yellow sundress standing by his car. He'd just gotten off work at the hospital and despite the fact that it was morning, he was tired. The kid's dress hurt his eyes in the bright Californian sunlight. He reached for his sunglasses and slipped them on.

The spiky-haired woman stepped toward him, as he drew nearer, and extended her hand.

* * *

The police detective crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair and eyeing his coffee. _Sure he had!_ His partner might have been convinced by this guy's story, but all he was convinced of was that the guy was a crackpot looking for attention.

It was always the same with these guys.

Loonies!

Still, it couldn't hurt to run over the stuff one more time before they packed it up; it was that, or paperwork.

It didn't take a genius to figure which he'd prefer.

* * *

Shannen leant in to press the buzzer on the wall next to the front door.

She sure hoped she'd got the right place!

She lifted her expensive sunglasses from her nose and rested them on top of her hair, sighing.

It wasn't a bad place!

So, Blue Cove, Delaware; JR Cox! She wondered what else Blue Cove had to offer.


End file.
